185 Research Paper: Factors Afecting Pro fessional Competency of Iranian Preschool Admini srator s Based on Crisis Management Approach Shahin Amani 1 , Siamak Tahmasbi 1 , Alireza Baneshi 2 , Mohsen Poursadeghiyan 3 , Mansoureh Karimzadeh 1* 1. Department of Preschool Education, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. 2. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology & Education, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran. 3. Health in Emergency and Disaser Research Center, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. * Corresponding Author: Mansoureh Karimzadeh, PhD Address: Department of Preschool Education, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: mkarimz2000@gmail.com Background: Children’s inability to protect themselves, shows the importance of crisis management in preschool period. Preschool adminisrators can help them with the risk prevention during crisis. We aimed to invesigate the professional competencies of preschool adminisrators based on crisis management approach. Materials and Methods: The sudy participants included 387 preschool adminisrators in Tehran, Iran, selected by multi-sage cluser sampling method. The surveying tool was a quesionnaire designed based on the Child Care Director Self-Assessment insrument (North Carolina Insitute, 2015), which has 76 items covering 11 diferent competency areas. The obtained data were analyzed in SPSS (Version 21) by performing descriptive tess and inferential satisics like the Kruskal-Wallis tes and the sepwise linear regression method. Results: The results showed a signifcant diference between professional competency of preschool adminisrators 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: Adminisrators who are more professionally competent in terms of technical, human, and perceptual skills are more qualifed for the preschool management, but age variables can not predict eligibility. A B S T R A C T Keywords: Professional competence, Educational measurement, Preschool, Crisis management Citation: Amani Sh, Tahmasbi S, Baneshi A, Poursadeghiyan M, Karimzadeh M. Factors Afecting Professional Competency of Iranian Preschool Adminisrators Based on Crisis Management Approach. Health in Emergencies and Disasers Quarterly. 2018; 3(4):185-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.32598/hdq.3.4.185 : http://dx.doi.org/10.32598/hdq.3.4.185 Use your device to scan and read the artcle online Article info: Received: 11 Nov. 2017 Accepted: 10 Mar. 2018 Available Online: 01 Jul. 2018 Funding: See Page 189 Copyright: The Author(s) 1. Introduction ince its creation, man has been involved in education, as it plays an important role among social insitutions [1, 2]. Preschool is the frs sage of education sysem aimed to prepare children for primary schools [1, 3-6]. Thou- sands of children and teenagers spend their golden life in schools. Since sudents are unable to protect themselves from incidents, governments mus develop prevention programs, coping skills and crisis control plans at na- tional, regional, provincial and local levels. Even orga- S July 2018, Volume 3, Number 4