Teacher educators need to be more responsive to the views of stakeholders in the provision of teacher education programs. In the planning phase of two new preschool teacher education courses, a large scale, systematic study ("the contextual analysis")...
Teacher educators need to be more responsive to the views of stakeholders in the provision of teacher education programs. In the planning phase of two new preschool teacher education courses, a large scale, systematic study ("the contextual analysis") was conducted to collect stake-holders‘ views on the following: What is it like for young children to grow up in Hong Kong and what are the contextual factors impinging on it? What is the role of early childhood education? Who are the competent early childhood teachers and what makes them competent? Qualitative and quantitative data was collected through focus group interviews, a questionnaire survey and an archival study. This paper reports the process and outcome, and examines the utility of the study.