Early Childhood Teachers' Work Environment, Perceived Personal Stress, and Professional Commitment in South Korea.

IF 1.7 4区心理学 Q3 PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL

Child & Youth Care Forum Pub Date : 2022-12-09 DOI:10.1007/s10566-022-09722-9

Sooyeon Byun, Lieny Jeon

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Abstract

Background: Teachers' professional commitment is essential for providing high-quality early care and education (ECE) to young children. Previous studies suggest that teachers' perceptions of low levels of personal stress and a satisfactory work environment are both likely to be associated with their greater commitment to work.

Objective: The current study examined the incremental validity of work environment as a predictor of professional commitment beyond personal stress perceived by ECE teachers in South Korea. Specifically, we hypothesized that teachers' satisfactory work environment would predict a significant amount of variance in professional commitment beyond personal stress.

Methods: Survey data were collected from 322 ECE teachers in center-based programs in Korea. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the factor structure of the professional commitment latent variable. Hierarchical regression models were tested in structural equation modeling with the professional commitment latent variable.

Results: CFA for professional commitment demonstrated that a one-factor model was the best solution. The final model explained 40% of the variance in professional commitment (RMSEA = .067; CFI = .906). Findings indicated the incremental validity of work environment in predicting professional commitment beyond personal stress.

Conclusions: The current findings emphasize the importance of teachers' experiences around having a satisfactory work environment and personal stress, either job-related or not, to retain teachers in ECE settings long-term. Program and policy level support to promote teachers' well-being in their personal lives as well as professional lives may be critical to improve teachers' professional commitment.

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韩国幼儿教师的工作环境、感知到的个人压力和职业承诺。

背景：教师的职业承诺对于为幼儿提供高质量的早期保育和教育（ECE）至关重要。以往的研究表明，教师认为个人压力小和工作环境令人满意很可能与他们对工作的更大投入有关：本研究探讨了工作环境作为预测韩国幼教教师个人压力之外的职业承诺的增量有效性。具体来说，我们假设，教师对工作环境的满意度将预测个人压力之外的职业承诺的显著差异：我们收集了 322 名韩国中心幼儿园幼教教师的调查数据。方法：我们收集了 322 名韩国幼儿教育中心教师的调查数据，并采用确认性因子分析（CFA）来检验专业承诺潜变量的因子结构。在结构方程模型中，对专业承诺潜变量的层次回归模型进行了检验：职业承诺的 CFA 表明，单因素模型是最佳解决方案。最终模型解释了 40% 的职业承诺方差（RMSEA = .067；CFI = .906）。研究结果表明，工作环境在预测个人压力之外的专业承诺方面具有增量有效性：目前的研究结果强调了教师在拥有令人满意的工作环境和个人压力（无论是否与工作相关）方面的经验对于长期留住幼教机构中的教师的重要性。计划和政策层面的支持，促进教师在个人生活和职业生活中的幸福，对于提高教师的职业承诺至关重要。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Child & Youth Care Forum PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL-

CiteScore

3.60

自引率

5.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： Child & Youth Care Forum is a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary publication that welcomes submissions – original empirical research papers and theoretical reviews as well as invited commentaries – on children, youth, and families. Contributions to Child & Youth Care Forum are submitted by researchers, practitioners, and clinicians across the interrelated disciplines of child psychology, early childhood, education, medical anthropology, pediatrics, pediatric psychology, psychiatry, public policy, school/educational psychology, social work, and sociology as well as government agencies and corporate and nonprofit organizations that seek to advance current knowledge and practice. Child & Youth Care Forum publishes scientifically rigorous, empirical papers and theoretical reviews that have implications for child and adolescent mental health, psychosocial development, assessment, interventions, and services broadly defined. For example, papers may address issues of child and adolescent typical and/or atypical development through effective youth care assessment and intervention practices. In addition, papers may address strategies for helping youth overcome difficulties (e.g., mental health problems) or overcome adversity (e.g., traumatic stress, community violence) as well as all children actualize their potential (e.g., positive psychology goals). Assessment papers that advance knowledge as well as methodological papers with implications for child and youth research and care are also encouraged.