The Effect of Teachers' Empathy and Professional Development Levels on Teacher-Young Child Interactions

Objectives The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of teacher’s empathy ability and professional development level on teacher-young child interactions. Methods The purposes of this study, we surveyed 320 young children teachers working at public, workplace, private, and home daycare centers located in G City from January 2, 2024 to January 26, 2024. For the collected data, Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to analyze the correlation between each variable using the SPSS 21.0 program, and multiple regression analysis was performed to analyze the influence of the variables. Results The analysis results are as follows. First, it was found that there was a high correlation between variables among young children teachers' empathy ability, level of professional development, and teacher-yound child interaction. Second, as a result of analyzing the influence of the young children teacher's level of empathy and professional development on teacher-young child interaction, knowledge and skill development, self-understanding development, and cognitive empathy were found to have a significant influence on the overall teacher-young child interaction. Conclusions Through this study, we sought to find ways to increase the empathy and expertise of young children teachers by examining the variables that affect the teacher-young child interaction and the level of empathy and professional development of young children teachers, and to foster positive interactions between teachers and young children. It can be basic data to improve operation.