Professional vision and interaction of early childhood teachers

Professional vision as the teachers' ability to identify, interpret and evaluate relevant features of pedagogical interaction is considered to play an important role for pedagogical action. Empirically, it has been investigated especially among school teachers, but hardly among early childhood teachers. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate the relationships between professional vision and the quality of early childhood teachers' interactions. In order to evoke professional vision, typical teacher-child interactions were presented to 120 participants as video stimuli. Professional vision was assessed using two open (thinking aloud and retrospective interview) and one closed answering format (rating scales). The internationally well-established Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS Pre-K) was used to assess the quality of the teachers' interactional behavior. Within the frame of a structural equation model with latent variables, only the professional vision assessed with the method of thinking aloud showed relationships with the behavior in the CLASS domains Classroom Organization and Instructional Support. The results are discussed with regard to the implications of different assessment methods for professional vision.