The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationships among personal characteristics (i.e., age, race, marital status, education level, and years of teaching experience), work environment characteristics (i.e., pay, benefits, type of program, age group of children, and class size), job satisfaction, and turnover intention of…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain understanding of how Midwestern kindergarten teachers use developmentally appropriate play-based practices to support the standards in their classrooms. Five participants were selected based on meeting the criteria of being a kindergarten teacher in a Midwestern school district who incorporates…

Students' and teachers' social-emotional learning (SEL) is the foundation upon which academic learning can thrive. A systematic implementation of SEL programs, with teachers' awareness of how they affect the implementation, is needed to understand its implications of embedding SEL in the classroom. This qualitative study aimed to examine how…

Children's peer-related social skills in early childhood set the stage for school readiness, social competence, and lifelong well-being. Preschoolers spend most of their classroom time in free choice, offering substantial opportunities for learning experiences that facilitate peer interactions that support social development. Yet, little is known…

This research recognized the current perception of preschool ministry and First Sarasota Baptist Church in Sarasota, Florida. In order to motivate and equip members to contribute to the spiritual formation of children ages two to six, an eight-week training course was developed for forty participants. Their progress was determined using a pre-test…

This study aimed to uncover kindergarten teachers' experiences and viewpoints concerning the challenge of integrating sufficient play into their classrooms amidst academic demands. This approach explored kindergarten teachers' experiences and perspectives to understand the complex dynamics between play and academics in early childhood education.…

Many kindergarten teachers are feeling the effects of standard-based education. The problem is that it is unknown whether teachers implement mandated state standards in a developmentally appropriate way. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to investigate kindergarten teachers' perspectives on implementing standards in a developmentally…

Early literacy skills such as print knowledge are essential building blocks for children's later reading and academic outcomes. Shared book reading activities in early childhood classrooms offer rich opportunities through which educators can support children's print knowledge development by explicitly referring to a book's print. Such references…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how preschool teachers describe their learning needs, understanding, and practice of social and emotional child assessments in the northeast United States. This research emerged from the problem space of recent literature--theory: Bandura's Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and…

The purpose of this descriptive phenomenological study was to investigate kindergarten teachers' beliefs about literacy and the relevance of assessments at the kindergarten level, the literacy skills kindergarteners should possess, how these skills are acquired, to what extent their beliefs about literacy influenced their instructional…

This qualitative research study investigates teachers' perceptions of school safety and their adherence to specific safety procedures in a small, pre-K-eighth-grade school district in a small, suburban school district in Illinois. Data were collected through anonymous open-ended surveys distributed to teachers with varying experience levels. The…

We know that women are underrepresented in math-intensive fields despite marginal gender differences in mathematical performance. Some researchers believe that societal factors contribute to this problem and have called for more nuanced methodologies to examine why underrepresentation and gender stereotypes about math continue to persist. The…

Professional development and job satisfaction is a topic of great interest for all those who are involved in the field of early childhood education. Professional development is closely related to organizational development, both representing a result of continuous changes in education. At a personal level, professional development has an internal…

The problem addressed in this qualitative case study was that many early childhood educators are unprepared for or lack the knowledge and skills to utilize trauma informed practices in their classrooms to help address early childhood trauma which leads to the use of exclusionary disciplinary measures. The purpose was to better understand teachers'…

The purpose of this study was to determine current kindergarten teacher understandings of early phonics instruction and how teachers are meeting readers' early phonics needs during guided reading instruction. Using Vygotsky's (1979) social constructivist theory and Ehri's (1995) connectionist theory and by focusing on age-appropriate instruction,…