Making visible teacher reports of their teaching experiences: The Early Childhood Teacher Experiences Scale

Abstract

The study developed multiple independent scales of early childhood teacher experiences (ECTES). ECTES was co‐constructed with preschool, kindergarten, and first grade teachers in a large urban school district. Demographic, ECTES, and teaching practices data were collected from 584 teachers. Factor analyses documented three teacher experience constructs: Teacher Efficacy, Job Stress, and School Support. Findings showed differences in teaching practices based on ECTES dimensions in hypothesized directions. Teachers experiencing higher levels of stress spent less time teaching literacy and numeracy and interacting with parents, whereas teachers experiencing higher levels of efficacy spent increased time teaching both cognitive skills and social‐emotional skills and communicating with parents. Analyses of program differences in these measures showed that first grade teachers reported the highest level of stress and that kindergarten and Head Start teachers were more likely to feel efficacious than were first grade teachers or other preschool teachers in child care settings. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Exploring links between early childhood educators’ psychological characteristics and classroom management self-efficacy beliefs.

“…Moreover, these findings are in keeping with previous results demonstrating higher reported self-efficacy among ECEs and kindergarten teachers as compared with teachers of older children (Fantuzzo et al, 2012;Klassen & Chiu, 2010). Thus, it may be that teachers of younger children tend to have higher efficacy for classroom management.…”

“…These results were comparable to the findings by Ehrhart and colleagues (2009). Notwithstanding its truncated length, the TIPI has demonstrated an adequate 6-week test-retest reliability (mean r ϭ .72) (Gosling et al, 2003), construct validity (Jonason, Teicher, & Schmitt, 2011) and convergent validity with other personality measures based on the Five Factor Model (Ehrhart et al, 2009;Furnham, 2008;Gosling et al, 2003). The TIPI has been used previously in research on preservice teachers (Silova, Moyer, Webster, & McAllister, 2010).…”

Comparison of Self-Contained and Departmentalized Elementary Teachers' Perceptions of Classroom Structure and Job Satisfaction

“…The structure of departmentalization alleviates a portion of teachers' workload, which may positively affect stress levels, allowing teachers to more effectively meet the needs of their students. Another study that considered teacher effectiveness in relation to stress was performed by Fantuzzo, Perlman, Sproul, Minney, Perry, and Li (2012). They studied teacher experiences and discovered that teachers with higher levels of stress spent less time teaching than those with less stress.…”

Influences on Turkish early childhood teachers’ science teaching practices and the science content covered in the early years

“…If support means that they only share materials and do similar activities without learning from each other, then it is possible that they just keep recycling poor teaching. This finding is important because in the literature a teacher's perception of school support is associated with both their self-efficacy and the time allocated for science teaching (Fantuzzo et al, 2012;Maier et al, 2013). In addition, although the importance of the professional development of teachers in achieving improved student performance has already been established (Lakshmanan, Heath, Perlmutter, & Elder, 2011), there was evidence in the findings of the current study that teachers in Turkish ECE settings do not receive sufficient professional support.…”