How Kindergarten Teachers Assess Their Own Professional Competencies

Eva Pupíková,Anna Tirpáková,Dalibor Gonda,Janka Medová,Dana Kolárová,Kitti Páleníková

doi:10.3390/educsci11120769

Eva Pupíková, Anna Tirpáková + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11120769

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Abstract

One of the requirements of Education 4.0 is that students and practitioners should be involved in the creation of the content of study plans. Therefore, in the present research we focused on identifying the further educational needs of kindergarten teachers. Teachers’ educational needs were divided into four dimensions: ‘content knowledge’, ‘diagnostic knowledge’, ‘didactical knowledge’, and ‘classroom management knowledge’. In parallel, we discovered how teachers assess the level of their own teaching competencies. Based on the obtained data, we identified that teachers have the greatest need for further education in the dimension of ‘diagnostic knowledge’ and that the need for their further education in this dimension did not depend on the length of practice. In the other three dimensions, a declining trend in teachers’ educational needs has been recorded with an increasing length of practice, declining significantly in three of the four dimensions examined. The study points to the need to create in-service courses for kindergarten teachers to deepen their ‘diagnostic knowledge’ and thus ensure the sustainability of the quality of pre-school education for children. Teachers‘ self-assessment of their own teaching competencies corresponds to their educational needs, which supports the relevance of the findings on the further educational needs of kindergarten teachers. This study aimed to obtain relevant data on which the improvement of the higher education of future kindergarten teachers might be based. At the same time, this would allow the analysis and tailoring of the content of professional development courses to the needs of in-service kindergarten teachers.

Highlights

The term education appears in almost all program documents on sustainable development at the international and national levels
The link between education and sustainability is indicated by the fact that sustainable development is the basis of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and at the same time sustainable development is the ultimate goal of ESD [2]
The ESD requires the integration of key concepts of sustainable development into all forms and levels of education; studies show that the implementation of sustainable development is very challenging for teachers and requires specific knowledge and skills [6,7]

Summary

Introduction

The term education appears in almost all program documents on sustainable development at the international and national levels. This is because education and the school as an institution play a leading role in implementing sustainable development in practice [1]. The ESD requires the integration of key concepts of sustainable development into all forms and levels of education; studies show that the implementation of sustainable development is very challenging for teachers and requires specific knowledge and skills [6,7]. The necessary specific knowledge and skills can be acquired by future teachers in higher education. Adequate attention needs to be paid to the education of kindergarten teachers, as the quality of pre-school and pre-primary education is considered to be one of the very important factors in sustainable education [10]

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