Study of Preschool Teachers' Psychological Well-Being in Nanjing: A Developmental Psychology Perspective

Purpose: This article is expected to bridge the gap in the recent researches on early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) where most researches were centred on children and teaching, in which case, the article attempts to investigate after the COVID-19 pandemic, how to improve the psychological well-being of teachers, a critical component in childhood education, to ensure sustainability in this field from a developmental psychology perspective. Design: Interviews are given to volunteered early childhood teachers from Jiangsu, China to gather information regarding the facts that negatively influenced their psychological well-being and collected data is analysed through thematic analysis to identify the potential factors which might worsen preschool educators’ psychological well-being and explore the possible solutions to improve their status. Member checking is employed to enhance validity. Findings: Several detected factors have significant effects on early childhood teachers’ psychological well-being: work-life balance, teaching efficacy, classroom evolution and career insecurity, which suggests that their psychological well-being is greatly influenced by such aspects and further actions and plans should be designed and carried out to improve their mental well-being. Originality: The article demonstrates the factors that negatively influence early childhood teachers’ psychological well-being and suggests the possible measures to make improvements from a developmental psychology perspective.