PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION: TEACHER RELATED FACTORS INFLUENCED BY THE QUALITY OF TEACHER-CHILD INTERACTION

Abstract

Teachers in pre-schools are expected to be caregivers and help children transition from the home to the school environment. At that age quality learning out comes for children involves stimulating activities guided by attentive and engaging teachers. The experiences and attachments formed in the early years are known to have long lasting effects on their later development and the role of teacher-child interactions is critical to these experiences. The current paper explored teacher-child interactions in early childhood education, teacher-child interaction and which factors influenced the quality of teacher-child interaction in the classroom. Factors explored were teachers’ characteristics (level of education, years of experience, age, beliefs, intentions and perceived interactions) and external characteristics (class size, special needs child present, other staff present) on teacher-child interactions. Teacher-child interaction for sure improve the teacher-child interaction and children’s outcomes.