Standardising professional standards: A self-assessment scale for Chinese kindergarten teachers

Teacher professional standards are a mechanism to safeguard quality teaching. In the context of Chinese early childhood education (ECE), this study developed a scale for self-assessing teacher competence against professional standards. The study adopted a three-phase design. In Phase 1, in accordance with Professional Standards for Kindergarten Teachers of China, a 60-item questionnaire was generated. In Phase 2, with a homogeneous convenience sample of 323 kindergartens teachers, the pretested 60-item questionnaire was subjected to rounds of exploratory factor analysis, which resulted in a 34-item scale. In Phase 3, with a sample of 1030 kindergartens teachers, confirmatory factor analysis was performed, which confirmed three measurement models including professional knowledge (8 items), professional practice (18 items), and professional disposition (8 items). The study exemplified how professional standards could be used as a tool for teacher self-assessment in ECE in a formalised manner.