Preschool teacher characteristics and relational factors associated with well-being in the US, Korea, and Japan

The purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the effect of teacher characteristics (years of experience, salary, job satisfaction, ethnicity, motivation, and education levels) and teacher perceptions of relational characteristics (teacher-teacher collaboration, teacher-child relationships, parent-teacher relationships) on early childhood (EC) practitioners’ sense of self-efficacy in three countries: the US, Korea, and Japan.

As rates of maternal employment and single parenthood have increased, there have been corresponding increases across the world in the number of children who are cared for in settings outside the home. As a result, the role of the EC practitioner has gained in importance, and research showing a relationship between practitioner well-being and children’s outcomes has raised awareness for the need to examine practitioners’ well-being and its contributing factors.

While a small body of research conducted in the US suggests positive associations between teacher-child relationships, level of education, parent-teacher relationships, and teaching self-efficacy, empirical evidence to support this finding is not only inconsistent but also insufficient with respect to early childhood teachers in other countries. To address this gap, we surveyed 300 teachers ((n=100) in each counry) in the US, Korea, and Japan to discover the extent to which EC practitioner characteristics and relationship factors contributed to their sense of self-efficacy. Analysis suggested that while positive relationships, consistent with earlier literature in the US, contribute to EC practitioner self-efficacy in all three countries, there are cross-cultural differences that reflect divergent ideas underlying values and practices specific to cultural models of early childhood education in each country