A comparative study of Chinese teachers’ expectations of students’ development between selected public and international kindergartens

Abstract

This study was aimed at comparing Kindergarten 3 teachers’ expectations of students’ development between selected public and international kindergartens in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, China. Research design, data and methodology: Five public kindergartens and five international kindergartens were conveniently chosen for this study, and a total of 198 teachers (113 teachers from public and 85 teachers from international kindergartens) participated in it. Data were collected using the Teachers’ Expectations of Students’ Development Questionnaire (TESDQ), whose design was based on a questionnaire originally developed by Tremblay et al. in 2008. This research followed a comparative research design, and statistical analysis was performed using independent samples t-tests and a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results: Significant differences were found between the Kindergarten 3 teachers from the selected public kindergartens and those from the selected international kindergartens, favoring the latter group that was found to have significantly higher levels of teachers’ expectations of overall students’ development, as well as of teachers’ expectations of students’ sociocognitive development, students’ motor development, and students’ literacy and numeracy development. Conclusions: The results obtained by this study indicate that being working in a particular type of kindergarten in Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, China, appears to have a statistical effect on the Kindergarten 3 teachers’ expectations of students’ development.