There is a growing emphasis on accountability in the management of preschool education across the world. It has become common practice in many countries to evaluate kindergartens to monitor and ensure their quality. The Chinese government has been implementing the policy of evaluating kindergartens for 30 years. It mainly involves assessing…

Research Findings: This study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of Puhui kindergartens (PhKs), an innovative type of kindergarten proposed by the Chinese government as part of a 2010 national policy for the development of universal early childhood education, from the perspective of parents. Altogether, 28,732 Chinese parents, randomly sampled…

Teacher professional standards are a mechanism to safeguard quality teaching. In the context of Chinese early childhood education (ECE), this study developed a scale for self-assessing teacher competence against professional standards. The study adopted a three-phase design. In Phase 1, in accordance with Professional Standards for Kindergarten…

Teachers' psychological well-being is linked to their classroom teaching and student development outcomes. Kindergarten teachers are generally subject to psychological stress and burnout, but mindfulness training programs may be a promising way to alleviate these issues. This pilot study used a mixed-methods design to evaluate the feasibility and…

In 2001, the Chinese Ministry of Education issued "Guidelines for Preschool Education (GPE) (trial version)" to call on early childhood practitioners to use a child-centred and play-based approach to teaching and learning. In order to implement the requirements, many kindergartens in China have carried out the play-based kindergarten…

After the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, distance teaching brought on unforeseen challenges around the world, including classroom-based assessment practice. However, little attention has been paid to teachers' assessment practice and their identity as assessor in the new teaching situation. This study examines Chinese K-12 in-service EFL…

This study examined the effectiveness of one province's Kindergarten Quality Rating System in differentiating quality levels using the Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (CECERS). Results confirmed that, except for the difference between the Standard and Level-3 Kindergartens, the CECERS was successful in detecting the differences…

This study examined the degrees of congruence between two early childhood evaluation systems on various quality concepts: the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R) and Zhejiang's Kindergarten Quality Rating System (KQRS). Analysis of variance and post hoc least significant difference tests were employed to show the extent to…

This study compared Chinese kindergarten teachers' values and perceptions of program quality with trained raters' assessments of quality in order to gain insights into effective professional development for improving teacher quality. A total of 284 Chinese kindergarten teachers self-assessed the quality of their classroom teaching and rated their…

The researchers studied humour among Chinese and Greek preschool children in relation to cognitive development. The sample included 55 Chinese children and 50 Greek children ages 4½ to 5½ years. Results showed that both Chinese and Greek children's humour recognition were significantly and positively correlated to their cognitive development, but…

The authors present the development and the validation of the four-dimensional, twenty-five-item, five-point Kindergarten Environment Rating Scale (KERS). The Cohen's Kappa of the items indicates acceptable reliability for the instrument. The content validity and confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the data obtained using the KERS could…

For the thirty-sixth year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Anaheim, California. The Proceedings of AECT's Convention are published in two…