Factors Affecting Professional Competency of Iranian Preschool Administrators Based on Crisis Management Approach

Background: Children’s inability to protect themselves, shows the importance of crisis management in preschool period. Preschool administrators can help them with the risk prevention during crisis. We aimed to investigate the professional competencies of preschool administrators based on crisis management approach. Materials and Methods: The study participants included 387 preschool administrators in Tehran, Iran, selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. The surveying tool was a questionnaire designed based on the Child Care Director Self-Assessment instrument (North Carolina Institute, 2015), which has 76 items covering 11 different competency areas. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS (Version 21) by performing descriptive tests and inferential statistics like the Kruskal-Wallis test and the stepwise linear regression method. Results: The results showed a significant difference between professional competency of preschool administrators in terms of age, management experience and educational level (P<0.001). Also, regression results revealed that management experience and educational level can predict professional competency for crisis management, but age could not predict the variation in professional competency (P>0.05). Conclusion: Administrators who are more professionally competent in terms of technical, human, and perceptual skills are more qualified for the preschool management, but age variables can not predict eligibility.