On-site Investigation Of Educational Narrative Inquiry In The Kindergarten

As preschool education is greatly valued in the country, it is experiencing an unprecedented momentum of development. However, due to objective and subjective reasons, kindergarten teachers’ professional ability is barely satisfactory, which has a direct impact on the quality of preschool education. As a qualitative study, educational narrative inquiry focuses on teacher practices and educational cases in real contexts. The narrative originates from teachers’ practice and daily life experience, which is in line with the unique feature of preschool:daily living as activity. This is an effective way to improve kindergarten teachers’ professional abilities as well as awareness of professional development. Adopting narrative inquiry, we can solve concrete problems in educational practices and enhance the quality of kindergarten education as well. At the same time, we can also improve teachers’ reflective and critical abilities while bolstering their confidence about research. In so doing, we aim to encourage teachers’ research as well as professional development.The current study uses as example the kindergarten teachers in a county of Fuzhou. The main research methods include case studies, questionnaires, interviews, literature research, lessons learned. I explored the current situation of narrative inquiry in this county kindergarten and examined the content, forms, methods, levels of their narrative inquiry. I also analyzed the research result and discussed the strength and weakness of the application of narrative inquiry in this kindergarten. In addition, I provided a thorough analysis on the reasons. Based on my research, I have proposed strategies and suggestions to improve the applicability of narrative inquiry in kindergarten.