Classroom quality profiles and associations with children’s classroom engagement in Vietnamese kindergartens

The aim of the current study was to identify latent profile groups based on observed teachers’ classroom quality and the relations of the latent profile groups to teacher age, teaching experience and children’s classroom engagement and disaffection. Observations of 57 Vietnamese kindergarten teachers were conducted in the domains of emotional support, classroom organisation and instructional support, utilising the classroom assessment scoring system. Children’s classroom engagement and disaffection were measured for 1218 kindergarten children using the teacher-reported student engagement of the engagement versus disaffection with learning scale. Latent profile analysis suggested that there were three classroom quality profiles (high, medium and low) for this sample of kindergarten classrooms. Teachers with less experience were less likely to be represented in the high-quality profile group compared with the low-quality profile. The outcomes of the fixed effects and random effects (means-as-outcomes) models suggested that children´s classroom disaffection was lower in high-quality profile classrooms compared with those of lower-quality profile classrooms. Children’s classroom engagement was not significantly related to classroom quality profile, but children in the classes of more-experienced teachers were more engaged in learning. However, children in classes taught by older teachers were less engaged than those in younger teachers’ classes. Children´s classroom disaffection was not significantly associated with teacher’s age or teacher´s teaching experience.