From leadership research to district action: What are the core features of professional learning community in Chinese preschool teachers’ perspectives: based on grounded theory analysis

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Introduction Professional learning community (PLC) has been concerned as an effective way to promote teacher professional development in China. However, PLC must be optimized due to Chinese culture and education system. This study aimed to explore the features of PLC in preschool teachers’ perspectives and provided theoretical basis for PLC localization practice. Methods Twenty-eight preschool teachers were engaged in a PLC, their interview data and personal reflection diaries were collected and analyzed based on grounded theory analysis. Results and discussion Five core features of PLC in teachers’ perspectives were extracted in this study, including a common vision, a read-practice-share flow, continuous reflection, distributed leadership, peer and organizational support. PLC’s common vision is to promote teachers’ professional development and children’s development. Teachers learn and reflect in the process of “reading-practice-sharing,” peer support and leadership empowerment play an important role in a sustainable PLC.

Study methods

This study was a single-case holistic design. Interview data and reflective diaries were collected in a PLC, and a PLC assessment scale (PLCA-R) were used to qualify them. The qualitative data were analyzed based on grounded theory, which included data collection, analysis and comparison (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Open coding, axial and selective coding were used to establish a model of PLC characteristics in preschool teachers’ perspectives.

Limitations

This study has some limitations. First, all participants in this study came from the same PLC, their perspectives were affected by the organizational environment and lack of diversity. So the results of this study should be flexibly applied according to the actual situation of the organization. Future research should attach importance to the learning behavior of community members and adjust the activity content and method timely. In addition, participants tended to focus on successful and impressive cases, some important features may be overlooked. To avoid this phenomenon, more case studies should be carried out to make the perspective of Chinese preschool teachers clearer.

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Jia Yang; Yifan Zhang; Yibin Zhou; Yulin Ji. What are the core features of professional learning community in Chinese preschool teachers’ perspectives: based on grounded theory analysis. Frontiers in Psychology (2023-09-12). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1177321

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.