Determinants of Job Crafting in the Education Services Workforce

The quality of services in early childhood education institutions is closely linked to the educational competence of early childhood teachers. This competence should be emphasized not only in their teaching duties but also in their creative role performance as educators. Unlike formal academic education, early childhood education operates with a child-centered, play-based, and integrated approach, without standardized guidelines. Due to the unstructured nature of the curriculum, early childhood teachers must demonstrate creative role performance by restructuring the curriculum to provide education that considers the interests, performance, and developmental levels of individual children, as well as making decisions that align with the contextual circumstances of the classroom. Given these demands, early childhood teachers require significant effort and expertise to fulfill their roles effectively. At this juncture, research is necessary to improve the qualitative level of creative role performance among early childhood teachers. This study identifies job autonomy and teacher efficacy as determinants of job crafting among early childhood teachers and aims to examine the structural relationships between these variables. The findings are expected to provide fundamental insights for enhancing the creative role performance of teachers in early childhood education settings.