The Relationship between Quality of Pre-School Child Care Institutions and Teachers' Teaching Approach

Various factors of the quality of preschool child care institutions influence the development of children and their future success in school. The activities of preschool child care institutions in Estonia are based on the national curriculum. Several indicators of structural quality have been determined on the national level. The aim of the current study is to find out how the indicators of process quality were expressed in teachers' activities and what kind of differences occur in teachers' pedagogical practice depending on the indicators of structural quality. Teachers' pedagogical practice is studied with the help of a scale- the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure. The results of the study revealed that there were statistically significant differences in teachers' pedagogical activities in relation to the number of children in the class, the work experience of teachers and the work organization the personnel in the class. There did not appear statistically significant differences in relation to the educational level of teachers.