Classroom walkthroughs as an effective strategy for preschool improvement during the COVID-19 lockdowns: a Chinese model

Abstract

Classroom walkthroughs are a widely used strategy for school improvement, varying over contexts and times. This study aims to explore the Chinese model of classroom walkthroughs in early childhood settings (ECS) during the COVID-19 lockdowns through a triangulated qualitative study. First, a group of ECS leaders (N = 15; Myear of teaching experience = 18.87, SD = 7.74, range = 6–33 years) and a group of teachers (N = 15; Myear of teaching experience = 8.40, SD = 3.96, range = 3–19 years) were interviewed in early 2022, and leaders’ observations notes were reviewed. The interview data were transcribed, recoded, and analyzed using an inductive approach, and the walkthrough documents were examined as a triangulation. Four themes and 13 subthemes emerged from the interview data: content, pedagogical skills, tasks, and challenges pertaining to classroom walk-throughs. Two major challenges against efficient classroom walkthroughs during the COVID-19 lockdowns were found: building community and feeding forward. Based on the results, a Chinese model of classroom walkthrough was proposed. Implications for quality improvement were also addressed.

Construction and validation of the Chinese Preschool Classroom Walkthrough Scale / Elaboración y validación de la Escala de Visitas al Aula CPCWS en la Educación Infantil en China

“…Recently, the Model of Classroom Walkthrough in Early Childhood Education was proposed, in which the Content being the 'tangible' through which supervisors become familiar with the teaching patterns and decisions that teachers make on a daily basis and the Outcome was the promotion of professional development and curriculum development (Xie et al, 2023). Furthermore, the model proposed two competing forces that drive the classroom walkthrough practices, a push force defined as pedagogical skills for classroom walkthroughs and a pull force defined as challenges confronting classroom walkthroughs.…”

“…It is worth noting that the existing observation scales primarily centre around teachers' teaching practices, interaction with the children and/or the classroom environment. Furthermore, the present study builds around the Model of Classroom Walkthrough in Early Childhood Education (Xie et al, 2023) and delves into various dimensions of classroom walkthrough related to supervisory instructional practices. These dimensions have remained relatively underexplored within the confines of the existing observation scales.…”

“…The objective of Study 1 was to develop and validate a measure to investigate the perspectives of both supervisors and supervisees in the preschool classroom. Given no instrument for evaluating classroom supervision in the preschool context is available, the authors first conducted an interview study with preschool teachers and managerial staff to understand their perceptions of classroom walkthrough practices in preschool (Xie et al, 2023). Based on the themes identified from the interview study as well as the existing scales for the primary school context (Hoque et al, 2020;Khun-Inkeeree et al, 2019;Romano, 2014), an initial item pool indicating walkthrough practices was developed and a respective factor structure was configured and validated.…”

“…Analytic approach and results. Based on the domains developed from the interview in which a model classroom walkthrough in early childhood education was proposed (Xie et al, 2023), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted in Mplus version 7.1 with 40 items in five factors: content of classroom walkthrough (nine items), pedagogical skills (11 items), professional growth (seven items), culture of community (eight items) and challenges to classroom walkthroughs (five items). Recommended model fit indices were used: nonsignificant χ 2 , the Comparative Fit Index (CFI) and Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) being higher than .90, the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) lower than .08 and the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) lower than .08 (Hu & Bentler, 1999;Schermelleh-Engel et al, 2003).…”

“…It includes the negative attitudes towards classroom walkthrough of teachers who believe it is a summative assessment on their annual performance and not beneficial to improving their teaching (Khun-Inkeeree et al, 2019Liu et al, 2020). It also points to the difficulty of following up and feedforwarding of classroom walkthroughs, which is less discussed in the existing literature but highlighted in interviews with the supervisors and supervisees (Xie et al, 2023).…”