Importance of a Positive Climate for Conducting Self-Evaluation in Kindergarten

Abstract

Providing accessible and high-quality early childhood education is a prerequisite for enabling the child’s mental and physical development, his/her individuality, reducing early school leaving, reducing the risk of poverty and social exclusion. In this context, a quality kindergarten highlights the need for highly qualified staff, as it has been proved that the more the professional staff in the kindergarten is qualified, the higher the quality of services that the kindergarten can provide. The field of pre-school education requires constant, planned professional and scientific work, which will contribute to maintaining the achieved quality of kindergartens and to developing a higher level thereof. In the empirical research (N = 398 educators), we were interested in the self-evaluation of the pre-school teachers in the Slovenian kindergartens, in their assessment of their
self-evaluation skills, their perception of the kindergarten climate, and in the relationship between their kindergarten climate perception and their self-evaluation frequency and research work. It was established that self-evaluation could be an important kindergarten quality assurance element when a stimulating kindergarten climate is created.