Early childhood (EC) teachers’ epistemic knowledge about innovation can influence their innovative practice. Drawing on literature from the field of individual innovation, this study was conducted to clarify EC teachers’ understanding of their daily innovation by applying a qualitative approach. The participants included six EC teachers from Mainland China. To understand the teachers’ perception of innovation in their daily practice, the following elements were defined: (1) the teachers’ personal conception of innovation, (2) examples of innovative practice in their daily work, (3) innovation sharing, and (4) factors influencing innovative practice. Regarding personal conceptions of innovation, this study found that the interviewed EC teachers perceive their daily innovation practice to be multidimensional and to involve their own educational philosophy. The teachers also understand daily innovation to mean the generation and implementation of influential ideas as well as problem-solving. Regarding factors that influence their innovation practice, this study determined that the teachers possessed a systematic sense with awareness of both internal factors (i.e., personalities and traits, intrinsic motivation, personal experience, and professional capacity) and external ones (i.e., whether there is support available at the task level, interpersonal level, organizational leadership level, or local ecological level). This study offers a discussion about perspectives on the process of knowledge production to better understand EC teachers’ ideas about innovation in their daily practice.

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APA Format	Chen, N. (2021). A study on the innovation perceptions of daily practices of early childhood teachers in Mainland China. Journal of Research in Education Sciences, 66(1), 275-296. https://doi.org/10.6209/JORIES.202103_66(1).0009