The Partial Mediating Effect of Social Support in the Relationship Between Early Childhood Teachers’ Professional Support Environment and Teacher–Child Interaction

This study aims to verify the partial mediating effect of social support in the relationship between early childhood teachers’ professional support environment and teacher–child interactions. A total of 215 early childhood teachers working in childcare centers located in P City, O City, and D City participated in the survey. In the research model, the professional support environment was set as the independent variable, social support as the mediating variable, and teacher–child interaction as the dependent variable. SPSS 25.0 and PROCESS Macro (Model 4) were used for descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples. The results are as follows. First, there were significant correlations among the professional support environment, social support, and teacher–child interactions. Second, social support had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between the professional support environment and teacher–child interactions. This indicates that the professional support environment not only directly affects teacher–child interactions but also indirectly influences them through social support. The study provides empirical evidence for the importance of social support in enhancing the quality of teacher–child interactions and offers foundational insights for designing professional development and support programs for early childhood teachers.