Preliminary communication

The Road to Quality in the Theory and Practice of Early Learning: Identity of the Preschool Teacher Profession

Anka Jurčević-Lozančić ; Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb

Abstract

The profession of preschool teachers is extremely complex, requiring high professional awareness, continuous research of educational practice, responsibility, ethics, creativity, continuous reflective judgement, and it is almost impossible to achieve professional advancement without lifelong learning and professional development. The study, the results of which are presented in this paper, was conducted in order to determine the attitudes of preschool teachers towards the need and importance of their further professional development in relation to some socio-demographic factors (the current initial training of preschool teachers, age, years of work experience, the number and size of the preschool institutions located in a town or a village). This study included 573 preschool teachers from Zagreb, Karlovac, Međimurje, Bjelovar-Bilogora, and Virovitica-Podravina counties. The results of this study show that with respect to age, the existing level of initial education and years of work experience of preschool teachers, a statistically significant difference was obtained only regarding the first of the five items in total (Knowledge acquired during my study has significantly improved my theoretical expertise). The values of descriptive statistics indicate that the existing initial education has more or less met their theoretical and practical expectations in terms of the acquisition of overall knowledge.

Keywords

attitudes of preschool teachers; early childhood education; lifelong learning; quality of theory and practice

Hrčak ID:

137696

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/137696

Publication date:

25.2.2015.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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