Construct of the Quality of Preschool Education in the Representation of School Principals (Evidence from Moscow)

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study and describe the ideas of the directors about the quality of the preschool level, to study possible problems that they have to face when organizing conditions in preschool organizations, approaches to the formation of a standard for preschool education. Since the solution of managerial problems related to preschool organizations that are part of territorial educational complexes in Moscow is within the competence of school principals, the question arises on the basis of what objective characteristics, indicators, directors make managerial decisions. The paper answers the following research questions: 1. How do school principals understand the “quality of preschool education”? What's a good kindergarten? 2. How do directors measure the quality of preschool education in their institutions? Is there an indicator system? 3. What conditions, according to the directors, should be created or what conditions are created/created to improve the quality of preschool education? The work carries out qualitative research using thematic interviews. During the interviews, we tried to identify the main factors affecting the quality of preschool education, the work of the kindergarten, and the attitude of directors to these factors, in order to find out how strong, in the opinion of directors, the influence of these factors. Based on the analysis of data, similarities and differences in the representations of the directors of territorial educational complexes of Moscow on the quality of preschool education were determined. Cognitive graphs were constructed for three main groups of ideas about the quality of preschool education based on the results of interviews.