Research On The Development And Application Of Situational Judgment Test Of Preschool Teachers' Competence In Childcare And Education

The care and education competence of preschool teachers has become the core component of the professional competencies,and the basic condition for them to perform their duties and improve the quality of early children education.Facing with the lack of tools and the situation of poor post-service training,there is a need for a set of assessment tools which can solve the problem.The situational judgment test can provide tool support for this research because of its work contextualization,low cost,easy operation,and high ecological advantages.Therefore,a set of situational judgment tests has been developed to suit for the care and education competence of preschool teachers,and tentatively applied in education to provide reference for quality monitoring and post-service training.In accordance with the research purpose,the research has been divided into three main parts as following.Part One.Developing the assessment model of the situational judgment test.The key components of preschool teachers' care and education competence has been extracted by combining the perspective of macro policy and the perspective of micro teachers,and then transformed the working schedule of preschool teachers in early childhood education into the items of the situational judgment test.And meanwhile,the "action" of the childcare practice has been conversion to the response of the situational judgment test.The resulting assessment model lays the foundation for tool development.Part Two.Developing and optimizing the " Situational Judgment Test of Preschool Teachers' Competence in Childcare and Education " and setting the grade standards.First of all,the research upholds a practice-oriented philosophy,the "Items Library" of the situational judgment test has been determined according to following three steps:collecting and determining the items – building and revising the response of items – building answer's key and scoring.On this basis,after several rounds of empirical data testing,interviews,and data results testing,the " Situational Judgment Test of Preschool Teachers' Competence in Childcare and Education(First Version)" was finally formed.Driven by construct,the research optimizes the first version of the test from three dimensions including map construction,selection of task types,and item design based on item response model.Through the feedback of 617 preschool teachers and the test of teacher-child interaction quality of 29 preschool teachers,it has been confirmed that the " Situational Judgment Test of Preschool Teachers' Competence in Childcare and Education(Revised Version)" has good reliability and validity.Finally,the study uses the Bookmark method to classify teachers by stratification to form a group of teachers with four levels including G1(developing teacher),G2(developed teacher),G3(mastered teacher)and G4(expert teacher).Part Three.Applying the situational judgment test of preschool teachers' competence in childcare and education.First,the research investigates the current situation of care and education competence of preschool teachers,and it has been found that teachers' competence is at an upper-middle level,there are differences in various childcare activity situations.The related job performance factors has been the influencing factors of care and education competence but have a limited predictive role.And besides,there is a critical and sensitive period for professional growth in the development of care and education competence.Secondly,based on the analytical results of the competence need for teachers at all levels,and combined with the three elements of teachers' level handicap and construction map,4 levels and 9 abilities of preschool teachers' development path for post-service training has been constructed in this research.Finally,aiming at balancing the difference between the "ideal" and "actual" of preschool teachers in tests and activities,the research has analyzed the reasons for the difference in teachers' behavior from the perspective of situational definition,and further examined the quality of the test.The reason for the difference in preschool teachers' behavior lies in the influence of group situation definition(child-oriented and professional ethics)and individual situation definition(experience and habit).Toward that,this research has put forward some suggestions for deepening understanding,strengthening knowledge and breaking through bottlenecks from practice level.In summary,It was found that the combination of care and education competence of preschool teachers with situational judgement tests showed good relevance and valuable practicality in education.In conclusion,the assessment model in this research composes of teachers' conceptual station,professional vision,behavioral strategy.The content and structure in above assessment tool are scientific,rigorous and stable.And these are four levels of development in behavioral characteristics of competence in childcare and education.Besides,the situational judgment test has generated effective value in vary levels.This study has important implications for future evaluation research on both the test philosophy and the application of test tools.