Preschool Teachers: Who and With What Characteristics?

The purpose of this study was to investigate viewpoints of experts and teachers about individual characteristics and specialized capabilities of the preschool teachers. This research is descriptive-analytic that two qualitative and quantitative methods are used to conduct it. The population of qualitative phase includes faculty members of universities, PhD students, masters teachers in fields of Psychology, Curriculum and Instruction. The population of quantitative phase includes educators in Fars and Isfahan provinces in academic year 2016. Sampling method in the qualitative section was purposive and snowball and in quantitative section, 566 teachers have been selected randomly. Information was collected by the semi-structured interview and researcher-made questionnaire. Qualitative findings were categorized based on content analysis and quantitative findings are analyzed by the inferential and descriptive statistics. After performing preliminary study and analyzing the questionnaires, it was determined that reliability of individual characteristics was 86% and that of the specialized capabilities was 87% as well. Results of the Friedman’s test showed that according to viewpoint of teachers about the individual specifications, mental and personal health is very important, among specialized capabilities of the teachers, ability to manage the class is at top of related items in terms of importance.