Personal characteristics of preschool education teachers: Assessment of professional identity and emotional sphere at different levels of professionalization

Introduction. The article analyzes the problem of continuous and successive development of a preschool teacher’s personality. The purpose of the study is to identify the features of professional identity and the emotional sphere of preschool teachers at different levels of their professionalization. Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the study was built by the provisions of the professional functioning theory (V. D. Shadrikov), as well as the conceptions of teaching as a profession (A. K. Markova, L. M. Mitina). They allow us to consider teacher’s professionalization as a continuous process that has specific features at different levels of teacher education and independent career. The study was conducted using the following methods: theoretical analysis of scholarly literature and regulatory documents, psychological assessment methods, and methods of statistical processing of the empirical data. The sample included 236 undergraduates majoring in Preschool Education and 1565 teachers of preschool educational settings. Results. The authors obtained the following results: 1) summarized Russian and international methodological and theoretical studies of continuous and level-based professional development of a preschool teacher; 2) disclosed the content of the main regulatory documents governing the implementation of the idea of continuity and succession in the professionalization of a teacher; 3) presented the results of the empirical study demonstrating a set of positive and negative trends in the development of the preschool teacher’s personality in the context of continuous professionalization. Conclusions. Finally, a contradiction was established in the process of continuous professionalization of a preschool teacher. Strict normative regulation and broad theoretical elaboration of the problem are combined with significant negative trends in the development of the personality of a preschool teacher at different levels of their professional development.