A Study Of The Influencing Factors And Their Mechanism Of Kindergarten Teachers’ Learning Engagement

Teacher learning is an important issue related to the improvement of teacher’s expertise and teaching quality in kindergarten.Teacher’s learning engagement is a comprehensive reflection of the degree of teacher’s participation in learning behaviors,the quality of teacher’s emotional experience,and the level of cognitive strategy application.Based on daily teaching,research,and other learning activities,teacher’s learning engagement is aimed to improve expertise and work efficiency of kindergarten teachers.As a prerequisite and foundation for teacher development,learning engagement is also an important index that measures the degree of teacher’s learning initiative,efforts,emotional state and psychological resource participation.The study synthesizes and analyzes the existing literature,adopts a quantitative research method to investigate the connotations,the structure,the status quo and the level of kindergarten teacher’s learning engagement.Guided by self-determination theory(SDT),the study examines the influences of three factors,such as the kindergarten’s environment,the basic psychological needs and self-determination motivation on learning engagement of kindergarten teachers.It further reveals how the three factors affect learning engagement.The study helps testify the interpretive power of self-determination theory to explain teacher learning and professional development.It provides a new perspective to analyze and examine the influencing mechanism of teacher learning.It also sheds a new light on further exploration into teacher’s learning engagement,and offers an empirical basis and theoretical guidance for teacher learning.The following are the major findings:Learning engagement is composed of three dimensions,namely,cognitive strategy engagement,emotional and value engagement,and learning behavior engagement.Learning engagement in general is acceptable but there are significant differences among the three dimensions.Among the three,the level of emotional and value engagement is the highest,the level of congnitive strategy engagement in the middle,and the level of learning behavior engagement the lowest.Teachers with different positions,awards or honors,academic degrees or diplomas and kindergarten are significantly different in terms of learning engagement.Based on self-determination theory the study focuse on the influences of kindergarten environment,the basic psychological needs,and self-determination motivation on teacher learning engagement.Teachers perceive kindergarten environment as generally pleasant,but there are significant differences among different aspects of environment.Different background variables show significant difference.Kindergarten environment has a significant impact on teacher learning engagement with parents and children’s support as the highest predictor,teacher sharing and cooperation the second predictor,and the institutions and endorsement the lowest predictor.The basic psychological needs of kindergarten teachers consist of autonomy,competence,and relatedness.In general,the basic psychological needs of kindergarten teachers are satisfied to a comparatively higher degree,but there are significant difference among the three aspects of needs.The basic psychological needs being satisfied has a positive impact on teacher learning engagement with competence as the highest predictor,autonomy the second,and relatedness the lowest.Self-determination theory includes external regulation,introjected regulation,identified regulation,and intrinsic regulation.Identified regulation and intrinsic regulation of kindergarten teachers are at a high level,while external regulation and introjected regulation are at an above-average level.There are significant differences among various motivations of kindergarten teachers.Self-determination motivaton has a significant impact on teacher learning engagement.Also,identified regulation and introjected regulation have significant positive impact on teacher learning engagement,while external regulation has a significant negative impact on teacher learning engagement.In the effect mechanism of kindergarten environment on teacher learning engagement,kindergarten environment affects teacher learning engagement through five indirect paths:through the mediating role of the basic psychological needs,through the chain mediating role of both the basic psychological needs and intrinsic regulation,both the basic psychological needs and identified regulation,both the basic psychological needs and introjected regulation,both the basic psychological needs and autonomous motivation.Furthermore,kindergartens create conditions for teacher learning engagement,and provide assorted fundamental supports to promote teacher learning engagement.The promotion of teacher learning engagement is able to be realized by satisfying teacher’s three basic psychological needs,namely,autonomy,competence,and relatedness,and by strengthening teacher’s initiative motive and introjected regulation level.According to the above-mentioned research findings,the teacher’s three basic psychological needs be stressed,the level of teacher’s initiative motive needs be improved,and learning behavior engagement needs be increased,better kindergarten environments should be created so as to promote teacher learning,and enhance the overall level of teacher learning engagement.