Development and validation of Kindergarten Environment Rating Scale

Abstract

The authors present the development and the validation of the four‐dimensional, twenty‐five‐item, five‐point Kindergarten Environment Rating Scale (KERS). The Cohen’s Kappa of the items indicates acceptable reliability for the instrument. The content validity and confirmatory factor analysis indicates that the data obtained using the KERS could differentiate the kindergarten environmental quality in reality, as they proposed to do. As previous literature pointed out, the quality of kindergartens in this study varied greatly across different types and different areas. How to create and utilise the physical environment and how to interact with and provide appropriate support for young children are still common difficulties for kindergartens.

Keywords:

• kindergarten education
• kindergarten environment quality
• kindergarten environment quality evaluation

Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge Prof. Iram Siraj‐Blatchford and Dr. Penny Munn for their valuable help and advice on the research and this paper.

Notes

1. In Mainland China, the term ‘kindergarten’ refers to full‐day programs serving children aged three to six. The programs serve the twofold purposes of child care and educational preparation, and children are grouped according to age.

2. The issuing of the Regulations on Kindergarten Education Practice symbolised the beginning of top‐down kindergarten curriculum reform in Mainland China in the 1980s, and the Guidelines for Kindergarten Education Practice was its supplement.

3. The Regulations on Kindergarten Education Practice (1989) only described the principles kindergarten education should follow, which proposed difficulties in the way of practitioners understanding and transforming their ideas and practices. To make the requirements more concrete and practical for practitioners, the Guidelines for Kindergarten Education Practice (2001) outlined five curriculum domains, including health, society, science, language, and art and music, and briefly illustrated purpose, contents and teaching strategies in each domain. In this document, ‘mathematics’ was not an independent and separate domain, but was put into the domain of ‘science’.