Abstract
The purpose of the study was to develop evaluation criteria for special early childhood educators in Taiwan. Development of the criteria has undergone with literature review, focus-group interviews, and experts’ reviews. Data were collected from 214 teachers of special early childhood education, who worked at special schools, special classes, inclusive classes, and kindergartens as itinerants. In addition to frequency count, factor analysis was also employed for data analysis. Four major domains of the criteria were found as follows:(1) curriculum design: consisting of 10 indicators that covered the topics of understanding of the characteristics of children with special needs, beliefs and teaching principals of special early childhood curriculum, and assessment and curriculum design for children with special needs; (2) individalized teaching: consisting of 7 indicators that covered the topics of planning and execution of the indivialized education program, and child referral; (3) teaching management: consisting of 18 indicators that covered the topics of implementation of developmentally appropriate practices, utilization of teaching resources, creation of an appropriate learning environment for children, and teacher in-service tranining; and (4) teacher collaboration: consisting of 7 indicators that covered the topics of communication among fellow teachers, relationship building with parents and provision of the resources of medicare and education for children to parents. Results indicated that teachers’ views of the signifiance and administration of evaluation criteria varied. With the current criteria, efforts to assist special early childhood educators in pursuing professional growth and to put teacher evaluation into use on a trial basis with complementary measures to ensue a feasible evaluation criteria should be warranted.