Exploratory factor analysis: health perceptions of Chinese early childhood educators in Hong Kong

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore health perceptions of preschool teachers, with a view to inform early childhood practices and teacher education. Pre-service student-teachers and in-service teachers (n = 200) who were voluntarily recruited completed a 24-item health attitude questionnaire. Factor analysis identified four dimensions of health attitudes, reflecting physical, psychosocial, mental and emotional domains. Inter-correlations among the factors suggested that early childhood educators in Hong Kong embrace a holistic view of health, although they consider physical and emotional health as more salient than the psychosocial and mental health dimensions. In comparisons of the perceptions of in-service teachers and student-teachers, students placed less emphasis on psychosocial health, but teachers placed more emphasis on physical health. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for designing health education programmes for preschool teacher education.

Teachers’ ideas about health: Implications for health promotion at school

“…This is consistent with previous studies that underline how teachers' health conceptions change in relation to their characteristics or experiences. 28 We hypothesized that health representations linked to a bio-medical approach do not encourage the active role of teachers in health promotion. This Note: Low:% of teachers with a score lower than or equal to the 25th percentile; high:% of teachers with a score higher than or equal to the 75th percentile.…”

Discovering unhealthiness: evidence from cluster analysis

“…Following the Australian National Health Survey, the Kessler-10 score is grouped into a fivepoint scale reflecting: no psychological distress (10), low distress (11)(12)(13)(14)(15), moderate distress (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21), high distress (22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29) and very high distress (30-50). For the physical functioning score, there is no comparable recommended grouping, but it is sensible to group based on number of major limitations.…”

“…For the physical functioning score, there is no comparable recommended grouping, but it is sensible to group based on number of major limitations. We create a five-point scale reflecting: no limitation (score of 10); having one to three minor limitations, one major limitation, or one minor and one major limitation, (11)(12)(13); having four minor limitations, two minor plus one major limitation, two major limitations, one minor plus two major limitations or two minor and two major limitations (14-16); having up to four major limitations (17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22); and having more than four major limitations (23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30). Chronic, Drug and Treatment are counts with thin right-tails and they are also converted to a five-point scale.…”

“…The use of this technique in this study is supported by the large sample size of our data which adds stability and interpretability of the resulting clusters. Related work on multidimensional health has focused on the correlations between health indicators, for example through the use of factor analysis [20][21][22]. In contrast, our focus is on the levels or states of these indicators rather than their relative weights.…”

Public school teachers’ perceptions about mental health

“…In Hong Kong, a study was conducted on educator perceptions about general health. 2 For the sample studied, physical health was related to physical functioning and mental health with the ability to think clearly and coherently. Furthermore, psychosocial health referred to the ability to relate to others.…”