| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立花蓮教育大學 === 學校行政碩士學位班 === 95 === This study aimed to investigate the current professional growth of kindergarten teachers in Hualien County and related issues. Document analysis, questionnaire survey, and interview methods were adopted in this study. Questionnaires were distributed to a total of 326 kindergarten teachers in Hualien County, and 276 returned copies were valid. The collected data were processed on SPSS 10.0 for Windows and analyzed by percentage, ranking, and mean methods. Results obtained in this research included:
1. Expectation for the professional growth of kindergarten teachers in Hualien County:
(1) The kindergarten teachers tended to have high demands for professional growth.
(2) The top three organizers of professional growth activities that kindergarten teachers in Hualien County expected to participate in were “Ministry of Education or Education Bureau of the local government”, “education workshop centers or institutes”, and “public or private kindergartens”.
(3) The top three periods of time in which they expected to participate in professional growth activities were “Saturday and Sunday (including national holidays)”, “winter and summer vacation”, and “office hours”.
(4) The top three methods for acquiring information about professional growth activities were “formal notification by the organizer”, “search from teacher’s workshop information network”, and “email notification by organizers”.
(5) The top three methods for signing up for professional growth activities were “online registration”, “registration via fax”, and “registration via phone”.
(6) The top five motivations for kindergarten teachers to participate in professional growth activities were “to enhance professional knowledge of education”, “to meet the demands of teaching”, “to achieve self-fulfillment”, “to acquire an academic degree”, and “to increase career alternatives”.
(7) The top three types of activities expected were “observation of teaching”, “after-school visit”, and “keynote speech”.
(8) The top three aspects of professional ability to be enhanced were “teaching models and techniques”, “professional knowledge about children education”, and “new knowledge about education”.
(9) The top three methods for them to participate in professional growth activities were “professional growth activities organized by the kindergarten”, “short-term off-campus professional growth programs”, and “credit programs”.
(10) Professional growth activities expected by the teachers were mostly free of charge, followed by those partially sponsored by kindergartens and completely sponsored by kindergartens.
2. The types of programs needed by kindergarten teachers in Hualien County for professional growth were related to (1) class management, (2) knowledge about children education, (3) research and development, (4) teacher’s literacy of general education, and (5) administrative management.
3. Teachers with different background variables had different demands for professional growth.
4. In the aspect of difficulties in participating professional growth activities, improvement measures, and satisfaction level:
(1) The difficulties in participating in professional growth activities were: “conflict with personal schedule”, “hectic class affairs or administrative works”, “lack of related information”, “provided contents unable to meet personal needs”, and “family factors”.
(2) Measures for improvement of professional growth activities were: “The content of advanced programs should be compliant with teacher’s demands for professional growth”; “Teachers should construct a correct concept of professional growth”; “Administrative institutes should provide sufficient supports for teachers”; “Sufficient time should be arranged for teachers to have joint professional growth”; and “The administrative workload on teachers should be reduced”.
(3) The majority of kindergarten teachers in Hualien County presented a normal level of satisfaction with professional growth.
Based on the research findings, suggestions were proposed as a reference for education administrations, elementary school principals, and teachers.
Keywords: kindergarten teachers, professional growth
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