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PurposeThe paper aims to explore the role and the involvement of local community within the context of Malaysian early childhood centers (nursery and kindergarten).Design/methodology/approachThe research used a mixed method with a questionnaire survey in the first phase and qualitative interviews in the second phase. Quantitative data were obtained from a survey completed by 3,519 staffs from nursery and kindergarten all over Malaysia. Qualitative data were collected from individual and focus group semistructured interviews conducted with 140 participants of the Malaysian public and private internal and external stakeholders ranging from the relevant personnel of the early childhood care and education (ECCE) centers (administrators, teachers and practitioners), academic experts, regulatory agencies and parents.FindingsSurvey results indicate that the parents and community involvement with ECCE centers from the perspective of the management and practitioners is in the medium category. A total of three overarching themes were identified from the interviews, namely expertise collaboration, resource sharing and operation monitoring. There exists diversity in terms of community engagement and cooperation with ECCE centers.Practical implicationsThe findings are expected to provide valuable guidelines to ECCE centers' management and leadership in the aspect of community involvement where it could help to enhance their efforts of providing quality learning experiences for young children attending their centers.Originality/valueThis study is part of a larger longitudinal and mixed methods project examining the quality practices in setting the standards in the Malaysian National Quality ECCE framework. These findings contribute to the understanding of community involvement with ECCE centers in the Malaysian context.

Education, either formal or informal, plays an important role to help the masses. As such, educators, especially trainees, are entrusted to teach young generations all important elements, principles, or concepts in a wide range of disciplines. Surely, such an undertaking, especially for early childhood care and education, requires quality teachers. In this regard, existing early childhood care and education modules or curricula should be periodically reviewed and revamped (if necessary) to help produce competent teachers who are excellent in all aspects encompassing content, pedagogical, and technological knowledge. This paper discusses the professional growth and development of trainees in early childhood care and education (ECCE) in terms of short- and long-term goals, missions, and career path-planning. The paper also elaborates on the relevant training workshops, courses, modules, and curricula that can be implemented to help improve their practical skills. The discussion also highlights the importance of incentives, such as attractive salaries, bonuses, acknowledgments, and awards, from employers that can not only motivate trainees but also advance their professional growth and development. Certainty, strong development knowledge, practical skills, and experiences can help such trainees to be become highly competent, which can significantly contribute to nation-building efforts in Malaysia.

This research is to design and develop an initial psychometric evaluation of the Quality Early Childhood Care and Education (QECCE) scale. The procedure of developing the QECCE item scale was conducted by using the sequential missed method research approach. The study involved 2464 samples. Systematic reviews were carried out to identify the related constructs for the items, and discussion with expert panels for its validity has been done, followed by an examination of the psychometric quality of the items. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) generated a four factoring model with 22 items. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has proven all the items achieve the minimum thresholds of model fit. Based on structural equation modeling (SEM) outputs, the QECCE scale successfully explained 63.25% of the total variance. On this basis, the QECCE scale is a valid and reliable survey instrument specifically for assessing the quality of Malaysian ECCE.  The study confirmed that the predictors for examining the QECCE were Centre Management (CM), Safety, Health, and Nutrition Management (SHNM), Leadership and Professional Development (LPD), and Parent and Community Involvement (PCI).  https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.18.11.23

Preschool teachers’ professional development and professional qualifications are crucial in enhancing the quality of children’s education. Studies related to the quality of preschool education and preschool teachers’ professional qualifications are very limited in Malaysia. As such, this study embarks on finding the effects of ECCE teachers’ professional qualifications on their understanding of overall ECCE training, perceptions of the quality of ECCE training, understanding of ECCE curriculum, and their understanding of the teaching and learning process. This study employed the descriptive research design using questionnaires to collect the data. The sample of the study consists of 296 preschool teachers from West Malaysia. The findings indicate that the ECCE teachers’ professional qualifications have a significant effect on their understanding of the ECCE training. The results also show that ECCE teachers with higher professional qualifications have better perceptions of the quality of ECCE training compared with their counterparts with lower professional qualifications. The findings affirmed that the ECCE teachers with higher professional qualifications have a significantly better understanding of the ECCE curriculum compared to those with lower professional qualifications. These findings have crucial theoretical, pedagogical and practical implications in early childhood education.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate the Early Childhood Care and Education Curriculum Instrument designed to identify teachers’ perceptions towards the quality of early childhood curriculum in Malaysia. Through extensive review of the literature and interviews with experts and experienced teachers, items contributing to the quality of early childhood education were identified. In order to enhance the validity of this instrument, two experts had reviewed the instrument. In addition, 619 pre-school teachers were involved in this study. Factor analysis revealed four scales regarding the quality of early childhood curriculum. The four scales were (1) curriculum content; (2) curriculum review; (3) Philosophy and Core Principles; (4) Support for Special Needs. Each item in the instrument had a factor loading range between 0.96 and 0.35, while the alpha reliability coefficient for each scale ranges between 0.96 and 0.68. The findings of this study confirm the validity and reliability of the Early Childhood Care and Education Curriculum Instrument.

This paper aims to develop an observation instrument items to evaluate early childhood educator’s teaching strategies using creative arts to enhance children’s holistic development. This instrument has three categories. The first is that the use of the creative arts technique in the teaching that encompasses drama, puppetry, music, dance and visual arts. Secondly, the suitability of the creative arts technique with the teaching objectives encompasses communication, creativity, problem solving, curiosity and exploration. Thirdly, the creative arts teaching technique and children’s holistic development covering language, emotion, social, physical, cognitive, creativity, spirituality, attitude and values. Every item in every category has four Likert scale. It is hoped that every item of observation developed can be used to assess the execution of the creative arts technique in the teaching strategy to help the holistic development of the children.

This paper aims to produce an instrument of observation in the selection of meaningful approach to assess children’s science process skills. This instrument has four categories. First of all, the use of the type of approach encompasses the approaches of learning through play, thematic, integrated, mastery, contextual and project. Secondly, the suitability of the selection of approach encompasses relevance, parallelism, engaging. Thirdly, meaningful teaching encompassing the interaction or discussion, stimulation, involvement, curiosity and questioning and answering. Fourth, children’s science skills activities that cover problem solving, reasoning, looking into the process, analytical, inquiry and reflection. Every item in every category has four Likert scales. It is hoped that these items of observation develop can be used to assess the children science process skills.

The aim of the study was to develop and validate the Early Childcare and Education (ECCE) Curriculum Instrument for Parents (QECCECI-P) by examining parents’ perspectives on the quality of the ECCE curriculum in the Malaysian context. The items were developed based on the existing literature that examines curriculum programmes for young learners. The instrument was validated by ECCE curriculum experts. More than 350 parents who send their children to government- or non-government-funded preschools were involved in the study. The study shows that two factors are related to parents’ perspectives on the quality of the ECCE curriculum: curriculum content and philosophy and core principles. The items in this instrument have factor loading values ranging from 0.479 to 0.84. The items also have high internal consistency with the alpha reliability coefficient values for each factor, which are more than 0.9. The results indicate that the instrument is valid and reliable for measuring parents’ perspectives on the quality of the ECCE curriculum in the Malaysian context.