A Study On The Correlation Between The Quality Of Kindergarten Education And Child Development Outcoms In The View Of Urban-rural Gap

Under the long-term influence of urban and rural dualistic economic structure,rural preschool education has been the weakest link of preschool education in China.Compared with urban children,rural children lie in a disadvantaged position at the very beginning of their education.Under the view of urban-rural gap,this study aims to examine the relationship between quality of kindergarten education and child development and to reveal the effect of urban and rural environmental factors on the quality of kindergarten education and the path to child development,so as to provide empirical evidences and suggestions for policy-makers.Based on a stratified random sampling method,428 classrooms(238 from urban and 190 from rural areas)and 1822 children(989 from urban and 833 from rural areas)from eight provinces were recruited in this study.The Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale(3rd trial version;CECERS)and the Children's Developmental Scale of China(3-6 years old;CDSC)were applied to collect data on classroom quality and child developmental outcomes.Various data analysis methods and techniques,including ANOVA,correlation analysis,multiple regression and structural equations,were used to examine the urban-rural quality gap in preschool education and to explore the associations between urban/rural environmental factors and preschool education quality and child outcomes.The study results indicated that:(1)There were clear gaps between urban and rural preschool education both on structural quality and on process quality with urban kindergarten quality found to be significantly higher than that of rural areas.Furthermore,the developmental outcomes in language,early mathematics,social cognition and motor skills of urban children were found to be significantly better than rural children.(2)Social-economic factors of urban/rural areas had a moderate correlation with process quality of preschool education but had a weak correlation with child development.In urban areas,there was a positive impact of social-economic factors on the process quality of kindergarten and then on child developmental outcomes.On the contrary,in rural areas,there was a significant negative impact of social-economic factors on the process quality of kindergarten and then on child outcomes.(3)Social-economic factors of urban/rural areas might have different effects on the correlations between process quality and child development.Compared with urban areas,the process quality of kindergarten in rural areas had weaker effects on the development of children's language,early mathematics and motor skills with a similar impact on the development of children's social cognition.(4)There were variety of paths from urban/rural environmental factors to preschool quality and child development with their indirect impacts greater than direct impacts.Structural quality of kindergartens might have impact on child development via the mediation of process quality with its indirect impact greater than direct impact.Meanwhile,process quality of kindergarten education had the strongest direct impact on child development.Finally,family background also affected child developmental outcomes with its direct impact found to be higher than indirect impacts.At the last section of this paper,thorough discussions were made concerning findings from this study and implications for policy-making on preschool education were also provided.In view of the limitations of this study,it is expected that future studies obtain larger and more representative sample,adopt more updated child outcome measure,and apply improved data analysis models so as to gain more in-depth findings.