Preschool teachers’ professional development experience and classroom quality across regions and urban-rural areas of China

Abstract

When participation in early childhood education (ECE) increases rapidly, we need to ensure that ECE quality does not decrease because of larger class sizes and the employment of unqualified teachers. However, extant research has documented inconsistent findings on the association between teachers’ pre-service professional training (educational level and college major) and ECE quality (Early et al., 2007; Manning et al., 2019). Further, meta-analyses indicate only small to medium associations between in-service professional development (PD) and ECE quality (Egert et al., 2018; 2020). In China, the few studies that have examined the relation between PD and ECE quality have reported mixed findings (Hu et al., 2017; 2020). There are also vast regional disparities in ECE quality in the country. Against this background, this study examined associations among preschool teachers’ pre-service PD, in-service PD, and classroom quality across regions. Stratified random sampling was used to select preschools from the developed municipality of Shanghai and the underdeveloped province of Guizhou. 52 teachers from 29 preschools in Shanghai (N=26), urban Guizhou (N=13), and rural Guizhou (N=13) participated in this study. Preschool teachers’ demographic information and PD experience were collected through the adapted version of Survey of Teachers in Pre-Primary Education (STEPP) (Rao & Lau, 2016). Classroom quality was measured by the Measurement of Early Learning Environments (MELE) scale (UNESCO, 2017). Teachers in Shanghai were significantly older, had more teaching experience, were more likely to have Bianzhi and small group sizes than other teachers. Two-level linear models (classrooms nested within schools) were performed to examine the associations between preschool teachers’ PD experiences and classroom quality. After controlling for covariates, preschool teachers’ initial educational level (d = 0.33, p < 0.05), in-service PD experience measured by the reported frequency of out-of-school PD (d = 0.46, p < 0.01), reported frequency of school-based PD (d = 0.40, p < 0.01), and reported diversity of in-service PD providers (d = 0.43, p < 0.01) were significantly associated with overall ECE quality. On the other hand, college major and reported diversity of PD topics were not associated with the total MELE score. Further, the influence of preschool teachers’ PD varied across different domains of ECE quality, e.g., teachers’ initial educational level (d = 0.18, p < 0.05) and college major (d = 0.17, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of teacher-child interaction quality; out-of-school PD (d = 0.14, p < 0.05) was more related to the quality of classroom arrangement. Geographic region did not moderate the association between teachers’ PD experience and total MELE score (p > 0.05), but moderated relations with several sub-domains of MELE. For example, school-based PD had a significantly larger effect on classroom arrangement (d = 0.19, p < 0.05) for rural preschool teachers than those in urban areas. In summary, PD experience was associated with overall ECE quality and geographic regions moderated the association between PD experience and specific aspects of ECE quality.