The purpose of this study was to identify the subjective perception types of kindergarten and childcare teachers regarding directors’ leadership in early childhood education institutions using Qmethodology, and to examine whether teachers’ empower...
The purpose of this study was to identify the subjective perception types of kindergarten and childcare teachers regarding directors’ leadership in early childhood education institutions using Qmethodology, and to examine whether teachers’ empowerment and organizational culture differed according to these leadership perception types. To achieve this purpose, the following research questions were established.
First, what types of subjective perceptions do early childhood teachers have regarding directors’ leadership?
Second, what are the characteristics of each perception type of directors’ leadership?
Third, how does teachers’ empowerment differ according to the perception types of directors’ leadership?
Fourth, how does organizational culture differ according to the perception types of directors’ leadership?
This study adopted a mixed-methods research design centered on Qmethodology. To construct the Q concourse, open-ended questionnaires were administered to 140 participants, including kindergarten teachers, childcare teachers, and directors in City G, yielding 100 statements. In addition, 254 statements were extracted through a review of relevant literature, resulting in a total of 354 statements. Through two rounds of content validity review conducted by experts in Qmethodology and early childhood education, the statements were refined to 90 items. Subsequently, a panel consisting of a Qmethodology expert, early childhood teachers, and specialists in related fields evaluated the representativeness and discriminability of the statements, and 40 final Q statements were selected.
A pilot test was conducted with six teachers, after which the main Q sorting was carried out using a forced distribution method with 80 participants (40 kindergarten teachers and 40 childcare teachers). The collected Q sort data were analyzed using KADE (KenQ Analysis Desktop Edition), and factor analysis was performed. To gain an in-depth understanding of each perception type, in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 teachers (three from each type), and qualitative content analysis was applied. Furthermore, based on the identified perception types, a Q-assessment tool was developed, and an online survey was administered to 184 teachers to examine differences in empowerment and organizational culture across perception types.
The results revealed four distinct perception types of directors’ leadership, which collectively explained 32% of the total variance. Type I, labeled “Vision- and Trust-Based Supportive Leadership,” accounted for the largest proportion of variance (15%), followed by Type II, “Rational and Fair Organizational Management Leadership” (6%), Type III, “Emotion-Based Facilitative Leadership” (6%), and Type IV, “Relationship-Oriented Stability-Seeking Leadership” (5%). Each type demonstrated distinctive characteristics in terms of decision-making processes, teacher support, organizational management, and expectations regarding interpersonal relationships, reflecting the diversity of teachers’ interpretations of directors’ leadership.
Regarding empowerment, significant differences were found among the perception types, particularly in the subdimensions of authority, self-efficacy, and professional recognition. Post-hoc analysis indicated that these differences were mainly observed between the Vision- and Trust-Based Supportive Leadership type and the Emotion-Based Facilitative Leadership type. In contrast, no statistically significant differences were found in overall organizational culture or its subdimensions across the perception types, although differences in perceived tendencies and emphases of organizational culture were identified.
This study is significant in that it systematically identified early childhood teachers’ subjective perception types of directors’ leadership using Qmethodology and examined differences in empowerment and organizational culture through a complementary quantitative approach. The findings suggest that directors’ leadership should not be understood as a single, uniform influence, but rather as a context-dependent phenomenon interpreted differently according to teachers’ subjective perceptions. The results provide theoretical and practical implications for developing leadership training programs and organizational management strategies that consider the diversity of teachers’ perceptions. Future research should examine the reproducibility and generalizability of the identified perception types by considering contextual variables such as region, institutional type, and teaching experience, as well as incorporating additional organizational outcome variables such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention.