From leadership research to district action: Research on the manifestations and key factors of digital competence of China’s preschool teachers

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:

Grounded in an integrated framework of the Iceberg Theory, TPACK, and DigCompEdu, this study developed a five-dimensional model and employed mixed methods to investigate the current status and key determinants of digital competence among Chinese preschool teachers. A quantitative survey was administered to 599 practitioners, followed by semi-structured interviews with 15 teachers. The results demonstrated that: (1) Overall digital literacy was at a moderate-to-high level. Among the five dimensions, “Digital Management Competence” scored the highest (M = 4.323), whereas “Digital Leadership” scored the lowest (M = 4.021). Scores for “Digital Education Competence,” “Digital Learning Competence,” and “Basic Digital Skills” fell within the moderate range (M = 4.062–4.186). (2) Demographic variables significantly influenced digital literacy. Female teachers exhibited significantly higher digital literacy than their male counterparts [t(140.19) = −2.61, p < 0.01, η2 = 0.012]. ANOVA revealed significant differences across educational backgrounds; notably, teachers with master’s degrees and those with bachelor’s degrees or below scored significantly higher than doctoral degree holders [F(2, 596) = 37.371, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.111]. Teachers with over 11 years of experience demonstrated the highest literacy levels (F = 4.286, p = 0.001). Regarding professional titles, senior teachers scored significantly higher than junior or ungraded teachers, while intermediate title holders exhibited a distinct “low point” [F(3, 595) = 12.717, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.060]. (3) Regression analysis identified self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and proactive personality traits as the most significant predictors of digital literacy. (4) Qualitative findings highlighted that while educators recognize the value of digital competence, they face systemic challenges such as inadequate training and uneven resource distribution. Targeted institutional support is recommended to enhance teachers’ self-efficacy and motivation, thereby fostering their digital development.

Study methods

This research is a key project of the school where I am employed. This study employs a mixed-methods approach (D’Agostino and Frost, 2025), who suggest that mixed-methods approaches allow researchers to examine the same issue from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. This study employs a mixed-methods design to investigate the digital competence of preschool teachers in China. Specifically, qualitative data are used to complement the quantitative findings, thereby enhancing the rigor of the research. Our mixed-methods design process consists of three stages. In the first stage, quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire to understand the factors that influence teachers’ manifestations and digital competence. In the second stage, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews to further explore and explain the reliability of the quantitative findings and thus strengthen the study’s robustness. In the final stage, the results of quantitative and qualitative data were integrated to provide a more comprehensive interpretation of the research problem.

Limitations

This study examined preschool teachers’ digital competence—its manifestations and key determinants. The findings enrich the literature on digital competence in this population and provide a theoretical basis and practical guidance for designing systems to cultivate and support teachers’ digital competence, contributions that have clear practical significance. Nonetheless, the study has the following limitations.

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

Jie Meng; Yu Ouyang; Chenggang Wang. Research on the manifestations and key factors of digital competence of China’s preschool teachers. Frontiers in Psychology (2026-09-03). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1888962

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.