Chinese pre-service preschool teachers' professional development in physical education

Abstract

Physical Education in the early years is a subset of the Chinese kindergarten curriculum's health domain. The "Health China 2030 Outline of the Plan," published in 2016, encourages a vigorous national physical fitness exercise, and children must participate in scientific workouts under special supervision. Also, the Outline for Building a Strong Sports Country in 2019 focuses on the advancement of early childhood movement education, which has recently gained popularity in Chinese preschool education. The increased importance on the development of physical education in the early years necessitates the training of quality teachers. This paper reviewed the professional development of physical education among pre-service preschool educators in China with the purpose to summarize the problems and shortcomings of existing research and to lay some groundwork for future research.