Expectations of Preschool Teachers About Their Professional Development

Abstract

development, focusing on their professional and personal expectations. The first part includes a short presentation of modern trends for an ever-increasing preschool teacher professionalism, which also relates to their own (ever-increasing) expectations. That is followed by an analysis based on our empirical study which we carried out on a population of 616 Slovenian and Croatian preschool education students and preschool teachers. Those analyses revealed a series of interesting (expected/unexpected) similarities and differences in preschool teachers’ expectations about their professional development based on their background (teacher, student), gender (male, female), status (beginners, established, experienced), and country (Slovenia, Croatia).

Keywords

• professional development
• expectations
• preschool teacher
• preschooler