Effects of Reflection on Preschool Teacher Efficacy and Stress Related to Caring for Children with Special Needs

Abstract

As the demand for childcare increases, the expectations placed on preschool teachers has also been increasing; this has proliferated stress and led to burnout among many preschool teachers. The literature on stress among preschool teachers consists of several contributors and associated factors. In this study, I focused on the stress caused by the difficulty in understanding and managing children with special needs and examined the effects of preschool teacher reflection on preschool teacher efficacy and stress related to understanding and managing children. For preschool teacher efficacy, as reflected by preschool teachers themselves, neither self-consideration nor self-consciousness had an effect on preschool teacher efficacy. Regarding reflection on children, child analysis had a significant positive effect on preschool teacher efficacy but child detection did not. For reflection through others, gathering information from others had a significant negative effect on preschool teacher efficacy but using other people’s information did not. Conversely, for stress related to understanding and managing children, regarding reflection on preschool teachers themselves, indicated self-consideration had a significant positive effect on stress but self-consciousness did not. For reflection on children, child analysis had a significant negative effect on stress but child detection did not. Regarding reflection through others, neither using other people’s information nor gathering information from others had an effect on preschool teachers’ stress related to understanding and managing children. These results suggest that preschool te achers’ child analysis can lead to cyclical reflection through the awareness of essential aspects, such as the ALACT model proposed by Korthagen (2001). Further, it was suggested that this kind of reflection may improve the sense of efficacy among preschool teachers and reduce stress related to understanding and managing children with various issues and characteristics, leading to high-quality childcare.