The Effect of Early Childhood Teachers’ Play Sensitivity, Teaching Creativity, and Professional Support Environment on Teacher-Young Children Interaction

Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of early childhood teachers’ play sensitivity, teaching creativity, professional support environment on teacher-young children interaction. Methods For data collection, 414 early childhood teachers in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon, Gyeongbuk, and Gyeongnam were surveyed by questionnaires about teachers’ play sensitivity, teaching creativity, professional support environment, and teacher-young children interaction from 3 March 2023 to 5 April. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used by SPSS 27.0. Results First, early childhood teachers' play sensitivity and professional support environment showed significant difference by the teachers’ age, career and institutional type. Early childhood teachers’ teaching creativity and teacher-young children interaction showed significant difference by the age, education, career, and institutional type. Second, there were significant positive correlation between teachers’ play sensitivity, teaching creativity, professional support environment on teacher-young children interaction. Third, early childhood teachers’ play sensitivity, teaching creativity, professional support environment had significant effect on teacher-young children interaction. Conclusions In order to promote early childhood teachers' teacher-young children interaction, it is important to increase the level of play sensitivity, teaching creativity, professional support environment, and education should be supported for this.