Adaptation of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II (KTS-II) for the Chinese vocational university students majoring in preschool education

Abstract

ABSTRACT The preschool education major in vocational universities serves as the core platform for cultivating students who are preparing to become applied early childhood teachers in China, but currently its education is too unified and ignores the differences among students. In addition, there is a lack of a measurement instrument to understand student differences. The purpose of this study is to adapt the English version of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter II (KTS-II) into the Chinese version in order to measure and understand the temperament types of Chinese vocational university students majoring in preschool education, so as to make it possible to conduct differentiated education based on student temperament differences. The adaptation procedure consists of three phases: (1) the scale translation phase; (2) the scale evaluation phase, including expert evaluation and target population pretesting; and (3) the scale testing phase, including initial testing and retesting. The results show that by removing six items from the original English version of the KTS-II, 64 items in the Chinese version of the KTS-II have been proven to have acceptable validity and reliability. The conclusions suggest that the Chinese version of the KTS-II can be used by relevant stakeholders in the preschool education major of Chinese vocational universities to distinguish student differences, and the scale adaptation procedure and methods in this study can serve as a theoretical reference for scale adaptors.