Research On The Plateau Phenomenon Of The Professional Development Of Kindergarten Teachers

With teaching as a profession continuously developing,since its coming into existence,teacher development has always been an eye-catching proposition concerning education quality and national prosperity.It is extremely significant to research and advance teacher development,by reviewing it in the perspective of teachers’ whole professional career.As a realistic problem in the developing process of teachers’ profession,career plateau is a multi-disciplinary research field as well as an emerging research focus.However,throughout the related researches at home and abroad,there is little specialized research on kindergarten teachers’ professional development plateau.The analysis of existential career plateau phenomenon shows concerns for occupational nature,practical difficulties,internal demands,and development opportunities of kindergarten teachers,displays kindergarten teachers’ life and social ecology,and reflects the actual survival as well as deep inner voice of kindergarten teachers,which are beneficial to arouse the understanding of and attention to kindergarten teachers from the whole society,maintain kindergarten teachers’mental health,refine teachers’ cultivation and training research,and promote teachers’ inner purification and self-growth.Therefore,there exist theoretical values and practical significance to research the kindergarten teachers’ career plateau under the background of contemporary Chinese society and culture.In this study,the career plateau phenomenon of kindergarten teachers’ professional development is deeply and carefully researched,following the logical clues of inevitable trend-actual state-reasons-possibility,using multi-disciplinary theory and diversified methods.Firstly,the author concludes and elaborates the understanding for the inevitable trend of teachers’ professional development on the basis of literature research.Secondly,a structural model of kindergarten teachers’ professional development plateau is obtained by means of empirical research and the questionnaire surveying among about 2,000 kindergarten teachers,in combination with exploratory factor analysis,confirmatory factor analysis,competitive model comparison,reliability and validity examinations.This model points out that there exists amulti-dimensional structure in the professional development plateau of kindergarten teachers.Through descriptive statistical analysis,the comprehensive features of professional development plateau of kindergarten teachers are concluded,indicating that the overall plateau stays at the moderate level;while the emotional plateau is most intensely perceived,followed by professional plateau and hierarchical plateau in sequence.According to independent sample T-test and analysis of variance,the demographic variables characteristic shows that there are extremely significant differences of overall plateau in age,seniority,education,qualification,garden nature,as well as significant differences in staffing levels and posts,however no significant difference is observed in marriage.All the three-dimensional factors perform quite differently in the aspect of demographic variables.Thirdly,the author delineates the plateau experience of kindergarten teachers’ professional development with the phenomenological theory and methods.As a result,it is found that the plateau experience presents two-sided nature with more negative emotions overall.Fourthly,basing on the life course theory,the author uses the approaches of interviews,field observations,physical object investigation to search for the factors that influence kindergarten teachers’ professional development plateau.Three factors,including personality,organization,and society,are drawn out and elaborated in detail.Results show that all these factors exert an incremental and permeating influence on the overall plateau.Fifthly,supported by multi-disciplinary demonstration,the researcher provides advice for sustainable development of kindergarten teachers from macro-,meso-and micro-levels respectively.Finally,the author reflects upon questions,methods,values of the research and forecasts the follow-up research related to teacher development.