Teacher-child interaction quality and children’s self-regulation in toddler classrooms in Finland and Portugal

The association between teacher–child interaction quality and children’s self-regulation was studied in Finnish and Portuguese toddler classrooms. The participants were 230 Finnish and 283 Portuguese toddlers and their teachers (n = 43 Finland; n = 29 Portugal). The children’s behavioural self-regulation (e.g., attention) was tested individually as well as by teachers’ evaluations of self-regulation skills in the classroom. The quality of the teacher–child interactions (e.g., engaged support for learning) was observed. The results show that the engaged support for learning was positively associated with children’s inhibitory control in both countries and also to children’s attention in Finland, where also emotional and behavioural support was positively associated with children’s inhibitory control. The study stresses the importance of the quality of teacher—child interactions for the development of children’s self-regulation skills, and aids in recognizing the similarities and differences in characteristics of teacher support that are beneficial to toddlers’ self-regulation skills in two sociocultural contexts.

Author: J. Salminen, C. Guedes, M.-K. Lerkkanen, E. Pakarinen & J. Cadima

Source: Salminen, J., Guedes, C., Lerkkanen, M. K., Pakarinen, E. & Cadima, J. (2021). Teacher–child interaction quality and children’s self‐regulation in toddler classrooms in Finland and Portugal. Infant and Child Development, 30(3), e2222. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2222.

• Children’s abilities to maintain attention, regulate and inhibit their behaviour, while also bearing in mind the teachers’ instructions, are major developmental steps of self-regulation during toddlerhood.
• Previous research has shown that higher quality of teacher–child interactions are associated with children’s self-regulation skills among over 3 years-old. However, studies among children under 3 years-old, i.e. toddlers, are mainly lacking.
• Another limitation on previous research of the association between the quality of teacher—child interactions and children’s self-regulation skills is that the studies have been mainly conducted only in single country context, and have systematically shown that the differing patterns of teacher–child interaction quality contribute to the association with self-regulation in different sociocultural contexts.
• The aim of the present study is to shed light on these limitations on previous research by studying toddlers, i.e. children under 3 years-old, in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings in two different countries, i.e. Finland and Portugal, which differ on their ECEC curriculum as well as their unique cultural values, i.e. individual and collectivist, respectively.

Self-regulation in early childhood

• Self-regulation refers to children’s ability to deliberately plan and accommodate thoughts, emotions, and actions, and it develops rapidly over the first 5 years of life enabling child to gradually transit from “other-regulated” to “self-regulated”.
• Three components of behavioural self-regulation, i.e. attention, working memory, and inhibitory control, are essential in the context of ECEC classrooms.
• Attention refers to a child’s ability to select and attend to relevant information.
• Working memory refers to an ability to hold information in memory long enough to successfully complete a task.
• Inhibitory control refers to a toddler’s ability to stop a dominant response and demonstrate more adaptive and socially acceptable behavior.

Teacher-child interaction quality and child’s self-regulation skills

• Self-regulation skills are partially shaped by internal factors, such as child temperament and brain maturation.
• The rapid development of self-regulation skills across toddlerhood and the brain plasticity creates a sensitive period for external social support, thus these skills are also likely to be impacted by external factors, such as the quality of teacher–child interactions in ECEC.
• ECEC teachers have an important role in fostering toddlers’ development through supporting their engagement, cognition, and language, as well as act as external regulators of the child’s emotions and behaviours, helping them to become self-regulated.
• Classroom Assessment Scoring System observation instrument (CLASS-Toddler) divides teacher–child interactions across two domains:
• emotional and behavioural support (e.g., teachers’ warm attunement, closeness, sensitivity, and responsiveness)
• engaged support for learning (e.g., how teachers facilitate the learning process, provide chances for active exploration, and give feedback).

The sociocultural contexts of Finland and Portugal

• Cultural norms and values may shape the national curriculum in ECEC and the interactional experiences children share with their teachers, thus affecting on the development of children’s self-regulation skills.
• Finland represents the Nordic individual (i.e., independent or autonomous) culture
• the goal of education and upbringing is to support a child’s individuality and autonomy in relation to socialization goals.
• toddlers are encouraged towards seeing the value and impact of their own actions and behaviours as keys to overcoming tasks and constructively collaborating with each other.
• Portugal represents the Southern European collectivist (i.e., interdependent or relational) culture
• the goal of education and upbringing is to support the child’s goals and beliefs in close concert with the relational socialization expectations of others.
• toddlers are encouraged to shape their actions and behaviours together with others (i.e., co-regulation)

The study

The aim is to broaden the current understanding of the importance of teacher–child interaction quality on toddlers’ self-regulation development in two socioculturally different countries, i.e. Finland and Portugal.

Research question:

• To what extent is the quality of teacher–child interactions associated with children’s self-regulation skills?

Higher quality of engaged support for learning

(i.e., instructional support) is expected to be associated with children’s attention skills, and higher quality of emotional and behavioural support is expected to be associated with both working memory and inhibition control. In addition, country-specific patterns of these associations are expected to be found.

The data

In Finland, the participants were 242 children on average 28.7 months of age (SD = 3.5), and their 43 teachers and in Portugal, 263 children on average 29.6 months of age (SD = 4.2) and their 29 teachers.

In Finland, the ECEC curriculum regarding self-regulation highlights the importance of interaction for child development, supporting the child’s ability to find constructive ways to collaborate within a close environment and in wider society, supporting the children in learning to become self-regulated both in terms of their emotion and behavior. In Portugal, the ECEC curriculum does not explicitly address support for self-regulation.

Each classroom was visited twice, and four activities were videotaped: free play, emerging academic activities, arts activities, and a meal.

Individual assessments and teacher evaluations of children’s self-regulation skills were completed twice in both countries, about 6 months apart.

The measures

Teacher-child interaction quality (CLASS-toddler)

• observational tool of the interactions between teachers and children (15–36 months old)
• Two broad domains: emotional and behavioural support and engaged support for learning
• Emotional and behavioural support includes five dimensions: positive climate, negative climate, teacher sensitivity, regard for child perspectives, and behaviour guidance
• Engaged support for learning includes three dimensions: facilitation of learning and development, quality of feedback, and language modelling
• Each dimension is scored on a seven-point scale across 20-minute observation cycles (1-2 points are low quality, while 6-7 points are high quality)
• Two trained observers coded the CLASS-Toddler for both countries

Direct assessment of child’s self-regulation

• children’s selective attention was evaluated with attention subtest of the Developmental Neuropsychological Assessment (NEPSY), where the child is asked to scan a linear array of black and white pictures and mark the target pictures (bunnies or cats) as quickly and accurately as possible. The number of correct items, incorrect items, and time elapsed was recorded separately for both trials.
• children’s working memory was tested with the hidden toys task, where the researcher hides six small toys inside six identical boxes displayed in two rows on a table in front of a child. The child is then asked to find all the toys. The child must remember which boxes have already been emptied and which boxes still contain a toy.
• children’s inhibitory control skills was tested with the toy wrap task from the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA), where researcher tells the child that (s)he has something nice to play with, but it is a surprise that still needs to be wrapped; the researcher asks the child to look away and not to peek while the gift is being noisily wrapped behind the child’s back. The researcher then records the child latency to peek.

Teacher reported child’s self-regulation

• teachers used the subscale Classroom Behaviour Regulation from the Child Behaviour Rating Scale (CBRS), which assesses children’s classroom goal-oriented/mastery behaviours and the strategies used to regulate behaviour in academic and social situations. The subscale includes 10 items rated on a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always) and a mean was calculated.

Findings

• In Portugal, the average for emotional and behavioural support was in the mid-range, while in Finland, it was in the high range. In both countries, the engaged support for learning was in the middle–low range.
• In Finland, the engaged support for learning domain was positively associated with children’s selective attention (β = .14, p = .011), and inhibitory control (β = .15, p = .018), while the emotional and behavioural support domain was positively associated with children’s inhibitory control (β = .15, p = .015).
• In Portugal, only the engaged support for learning domain was positively associated with children’s selective attention (β = .19, p = .008).

Conclusions

• In both countries, engaged support for learning was related to toddlers’ better attention.
• Only in Finland, engaged support as well as emotional and behavioural support were both related to better toddler’s inhibitory control.
• The average quality of teacher–child interactions was higher in Finnish toddler classrooms, and the variation was larger in Portuguese classrooms, thus the overall quality of teacher–child interactions was more evenly distributed in the Finnish than Portuguese sample.
• The results for toddler’s inhibitory control implies that well-organized classroom environments and teachers’ use of clear, proactive strategies in supporting behaviour create instructional predictability within the classroom that further enables the child to gain a sense of control and exhibit appropriate behaviour while inhibiting the more inappropriate behaviours.
• It also relates to the teachers’ sensitivity and responsiveness towards children’s needs and developing skills.
• One explanation of this finding in Finland may lay in the central goals of the Finnish ECEC. such as emphasizing teachers’ active, responsive, and sensitive approaches towards children, along with embracing children’s autonomy and seeing children as active agents.
• One possible reason for the limited associations between teacher-child interactions and children’s self-regulation skills in Portugal may be that high quality interactions need to be combined with clear and intentional curriculum guidelines to have a positive influence on the development of self-regulation, as in Finland.
• Another possible explanation might be that the levels of emotional and behavioural support in Portugal did not reach a minimal level for toddlers to make substantial gains in self-regulation.
• It is also possible that Portuguese cultural values do not put such a strong emphasis on an individual’s autonomy as the Finnish culture does, rather the underlying values and cultural expectations may give priority to dependency and relatedness instead of independence or autonomy.
• However, it seems that beyond cultural values and norms, teachers’ active involvement, combined with clear feedback and thought-provoking interactions, helps children develop more effective attention.

Implications

• Teacher’s rich language input, specific and timely feedback, and active facilitation seem to improve toddlers’ attentional focus in both countries and also inhibition control in Finland.
• In the Finnish context, also behavior and concentration problems related to the children’s inhibitory control may be reduced by teachers’ sensitive and responsive ways of acknowledging children, along with their constructive an proactive group management skills.