Measurement of quality in early childhood education (ECE) helps shape policy and practice. This study reports on the adaptation of the Measure of Early Learning Environments scale (MELE-A) in one sub-Saharan African country. The sample included 250 public and private preprimary schools and 979 children from all regions of the country. Categorical confirmatory factor analysis supported the three factors hypothesized: health/safety, materials/activities, and teacher/child interaction. Association between these factors and child development and learning and teacher characteristics where following: only materials/activities demonstrated significant associations with children’s learning, while teacher education was associated with all three factors. Adapting measures for the use in low- and middle-income countries is a multi-faceted process and it is important to document psychometric properties of these adapted measures to improve accuracy of ECE measurement to inform policy and practice.

Author: A. Raikes, N. Koziol, D. Davis & A. Burton

Source: Raikes, A., Koziol, N., Davis, D., & Burton, A. (2020). Measuring quality of preprimary education in sub-Saharan Africa: Evaluation of the Measuring Early Learning Environments scale. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 53, 571-585. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.06.001.

• In the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Target 4.2 states that by 2030, “all children have access to quality early childhood care, development and preprimary education so that they are ready for primary education.”
• Accordingly, access to early childhood education (ECE) is expanding globally, however, the quality of the ECEC remains a concern.
• Several aspects of young children’s environments contribute to quality in ECE, including the physical environment, teacher/child interaction, the content of the curricula, the teachers’ skill in scaffolding children’s development, and the ability of the teacher to individualize instruction.
• However, in many low- and middle-income countries data on quality in ECE is not consistently available.
• Measurement forms the basis of monitoring systems to inform governments and stakeholders on the status of their investments in preprimary education, to inform parents, and to support teacher knowledge and education.
• In response to measurement needs as part of Target 4.2 and to support national implementation of ECE, the Measuring Early Learning Quality & Outcomes (MELQO) Initiative was begun by four organizations, UNICEF, UNESCO, World Bank and UNICEF.
• MELQO’s Consortium created two sets of open-source tools focused on preprimary education addressing child development and learning, and quality in preprimary settings.
• These tools were designed to facilitate measurement in low- and middle-income countries by integrating commonly-articulated global concepts of ECE quality and child development with local adaptation processes, with emphasis on creating feasible, cost-effective measurement.
• The present study reports on the development and testing of a recent open-source ECE observational quality measure, the Measure of Early Learning Environments (MELE), as it was adapted and tested in one country in sub-Saharan Africa.

ECE quality in low- and middle-income countries

• Positive impacts of ECE on child development and learning have been reported across countries and also in some of the poorest areas of the world including in East Africa.
• ECE has been shown to have greater positive impacts as quality increases.
• However, there is little research directly documenting quality of ECE in many parts of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, an important focal regional area for early childhood development where ECE could make a substantial contribution.
• There is considerable variation in the types, settings, and quality of ECE, e.g. with 87% of classroom time spent with young children sitting in rows of desks facing forward in a sample of preschools in Nairobi, while only 18% of time was spent this way in Johannesburg.
• Variations in ECE quality may also reflect investments: resources for ECE are limited in sub-Saharan Africa, with just 2% of education budgets devoted to ECE.

Evaluating psychometric properties of ECE quality measures

• Evidence based on test content, or the extent to which test content adequately samples the underlying construct, e.g. test content is the ideas, beliefs and behaviors that comprise definitions of quality in ECE
• Evidence based on internal structure, or the extent to which the data support the hypothesized factor structure
• Evidence of internal consistency, or the extent to which responses among items are highly correlated, e.g. Cronbach’s alpha
• Evidence based on relations to other variables, or the extent to which the MELE scores are associated with child outcomes and teacher and school characteristics

The study

• This study describes the adaptation and resulting psychometric properties of MELE scores in one sub-Saharan African country (denoted as MELE-A).

Hypothesis:

• The MELE-C constructs and items would be generally aligned with the content of national standards, but that adaptations would also be required to improve contextual fit to create a revised version, MELE-A.
• The MELE-A items would factor into three correlated but distinct constructs: health/safety, materials/activities, and teacher–child interactions.
• The MELE-A scores would demonstrate adequate internal consistency (reliability) evidence.
• The MELE-A scores would be associated with teacher and school characteristics, and positively predict child development.

Measuring ECE quality in low-resource settings

• Culturally and contextually sensitive measurement is important for long-term usefulness and applicability of results.
• Adaptations of quality measures have included changes at the domain, construct and item levels.
• The “core” MELE (MELE-C) served as the starting point for country adaptation. It shares many elements with other measures, including a focus on teacher/child interactions; materials; and physical environments such as health and safety.

The measures

Classroom observation tool

• The adapted version of Measure of Early Learning Environments (MELE-A) was used to observe classroom quality.
• MELE-A consists of several items including teacher-child interactions (e.g., teacher or child engagement), health and safety (e.g., drinking water or toilet facilities) and materials/activities (e.g., writing utensils or free play).

Child development and learning and social/emotional development

• Parents (n=906 children) and teachers (n=473 children) were interviewed on social/emotional development of the child with a 10-item questionnaire, e.g. How often does the child follow instructions?, with response options 0=never, 1=sometimes, 2=often/always.
• Children’s development and learning was also assessed by a trained assessor with a battery of tasks relating to spatial vocabulary, verbal counting, producing a set, number identification, letter identification, expressive language, listening comprehension, name writing, head toes knees shoulders, and pencil tap.

Participants

• The sub-Saharan African country has over 2 million people of which about half are children under 17 years-old. About 70 percent of population lives in rural areas and most live below the international poverty line. About 33 percent of children are enrolled in preprimary education.
• A sample of 250 schools, of which 85 % were private, were recruited to participate for the study.
• Children were nested in classrooms (one classroom per school), with one main teacher serving as the informant on children’s social/emotional development.
• Approximately four children in each classroom were randomly selected to the study, thus the total sample of children were 979 (46% male, mean age 5.49 years).
• The 222 teachers were on average just under 40 years-old, mostly females, with variable levels of education (e.g. only one-fourth had some college or higher and about one-fourth only primary education).

Conclusions

• Measurement of ECE quality is an important component of building an equitable early childhood system,
• Using the MELE-A, three hypothesized constructs of ECE quality –health/safety; materials/activities; and teacher/child interactions– were supported by confirmatory analyses.
• The lessons from the adaptation process include the value of including a wide range of stakeholders; the importance of clarifying what specific behaviors describe “quality” in that context; and the value of revising, testing, and revising again.
• Teachers’ education levels were associated with all constructs of quality, and health/safety and materials/activities scores were higher on average for teachers who were less stressed.
• After accounting for a wide range of child, family and school characteristics, children who were in better organized classrooms had significantly higher scores on average on measures of child development using direct assessment tool, but not on parent or teacher reported social/emotional development.
• Our study was not able to fully investigate whether MELE-A meaningfully differentiated between high- and low-quality ECE and on which dimensions the scale was most sensitive.
• The data from MELE-A might have also failed to detect associations between quality and child development because the scale was not sensitive enough to identify thresholds of quality.
• The MELE represents a novel approach to quality measurement, by taking a “core” of items to adapt to better match local context.
• Adaption of ECE quality measures is commonplace and likely inevitable to ensure both feasibility and appropriate test content, and more work should systematically document adaptation processes and resulting psychometric properties of measures.

This review investigates the types and extent of early childhood development (ECD) interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa using the Nurturing Care framework (NCF). The review includes 21 randomized-controlled trial (RCT) studies conducted in 13 countries, mainly in Eastern and Southern Africa, and published between 2019 and 2024. Target of the interventions were 0-8 years old children, and sample sizes varied from 134 to over 9000 participants. Of the single-focused interventions, nutrition-focused interventions were the most common (n = 9) showing positive impact on child weight and growth. Responsive caring interventions (n = 2) resulted in fewer reports of maltreatment, reduced endorsement of corporal punishment and fewer behavioural problems in children. The remaining three NCF dimensions (i.e., early learning opportunities, safety and security, and good health) each had only one intervention and the results on child development were mixed. Seven studies combined multiple ECD support elements, and these multidimensional interventions showed positive outcomes across multiple NCF domains more probably than single-focus interventions, although the results were mixed. Increased focus on underrepresented regions, i.e. Western and Central Africa, is needed, and interventions that incorporate all elements of NCF in African contexts should be developed and evaluated.

Author: J. Beukes, S. Alcock, M. Leal, U. Thompson, C. Draper & S. Norris

Source: Beukes, J., Alcock, S., Leal, M., Thompson, U., Draper, C., & Norris, S. (2025). Exploring Early Childhood Development Interventions for Building Human Capital in Sub‐Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review. Child : care, health & development, 51(4), e70138-n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/cch.70138

• Early childhood development (ECD) interventions have a critical role in human capital development, but there are inequalities in the provision of them in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs).
• Human capital relates to knowledge, health, interpersonal and socioemotional skills, abilities and education possessed by individuals essential for workplace productivity and wellbeing, and is important for economic growth and societal advancement.
• Early life experiences are important in adult human capital development and ECD interventions have moderating role on this development.
• The first 1000 days (i.e., from conception to 2 years) and the next 1000 days (i.e., from 2–5 years) are vital and sensitive windows of opportunity where interventions help to ensure optimal health, growth and development.
• By 5 years of age, children who received adequate early learning opportunities and responsive care were almost one standard deviation ahead (difference of 2 years of development) on multiple child outcomes (e.g. literacy, numeracy, motor skills and social-emotional development) of their peers who had not received this support.
• Many children in LMICs are still exposed to environmental risks affecting both health and development, e.g. poverty, malnutrition, inadequate healthcare, physical punishment, poor caregiver mental health and limited access to early learning opportunities.

Nurturing Care Framework (NCF)

• NCF is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
• Nurturing care relates to the provision of stable environments that promote the needs of individuals in five interrelated components, i.e., health, nutrition, safety and security, learning and relationships.
• Collectively, these components ensure healthy and enabling environments that support optimal human capital development.

The context of Sub-Saharan Africa

• Sub-Saharan Africa experiences the slowest progress in implementing integrated ECD policies and programmes.
• Most Sub-Saharan African countries fall significantly short of key indicators related to the NCF.
• There is an urgent need for coordinated, multidimensional ECD interventions in African contexts.
• There is a lack of knowledge on which ECD interventions are efficacious, such that they may be scaled up in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to what extent the full NCF has been incorporated.
• Thus, the aim of this scoping review was to investigate the types and extent of ECD interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa, using the five interrelated components of the Nurturing Care as classification (i.e., health, nutrition, safety and security, learning and relationships).

Methods

• Scoping reviews aim to broadly map key concepts and identify gaps in research.
• Scoping review differs from systematic review in that it does not necessarily evaluate the methodological quality of included studies or draw conclusions about effectiveness.
• Peer-reviewed journal articles and theses of randomized controlled trials of ECD interventions conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as follow-up or longitudinal studies assessing the long-term effects of these interventions, published between January 2019 and December 2024, were eligible for this review.
• The inclusion criteria focused on randomised controlled trials that explicitly aimed to improve ECD outcomes or components of human capital, as defined by indicators or outcomes related to cognitive, social–emotional, physical and educational development.
• Eligible studies included those that compared ECD interventions to a control condition, for example, standard care, groups that did not receive an intervention or alternative interventions that target similar outcomes.
• The population included children aged 0–8 years; the concept was ECD intervention programmes aiming to improve human capital outcomes; and the context was Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The final sample of 21 sources was synthesised thematically; interventions were grouped by NCF domain, i.e., good health, nutrition, responsive caregiving, early learning, and safety and security.

Implications

• This review demonstrated variations in research activity across the region and highlighted that nutrition-focused interventions are the most prevalent and yield the most positive child development outcomes in this context.
• Although responsive caregiving interventions were less common, they also demonstrated positive effects on developmental outcomes.
• There is a need for interventions that also include good health, safety and security, and early learning opportunities.

Conclusions

• Findings illustrate a predominance of nutrition-focused interventions, and the multidimensional interventions mostly did not include all elements of the NCF.
• The predominance of nutrition-focused interventions was expected, given the rise of food insecurity across Sub-Saharan Africa, where it is estimated that 123 million people (approximately 12% of the population) experience malnutrition, and to the globally recognized impact of nutrition on early development.
• These interventions were consistently reported to have positive associations with child growth outcomes, particularly those incorporating nutritional supplementation and breastfeeding support.
• The multidimensional interventions identified were reported to show mixed effects: three of the seven showing positive effects, while four not.
• Reasons for these mixed results may be the complexity of the intervention design, contextual barriers, implementation fidelity and the duration of the intervention.
• Most multidomain interventions did not incorporate all the NCF domains. They focused mainly on nutrition and health while often neglecting early learning, responsive caregiving, and safety and security.
• This finding underscores the necessity of designing integrated interventions that not only address immediate health risks but also support cognitive and socioemotional development.
• The five NCF components are embedded within a broader ecological context of structural and policy environments that affect interventions’ delivery and effectiveness.
• The ECD interventions must be situated within a broader developmental framework that includes multisectoral coordination, policy support and community-level engagement.
• Findings highlight a need for studies that include more diverse geographic contexts and underrepresented regions in Sub-Saharan Africa to ensure that local ECD needs are effectively addressed.
• Various studies show that ECD interventions are predominantly delivered in high-income countries and that there seems to be a large mismatch between where these interventions are most needed and where they are being implemented and evaluated.
• Thus there is a need to expand the research focus to underrepresented regions in Sub-Saharan Africa (and other LMICs) and consider local contextual factors that could influence the administration and success of ECD interventions.
• There is a critical need for longitudinal studies to assess the long-term impacts of ECD interventions, particularly in LMICs. These are interventions that should be implemented at home, such as parenting education, social protection, violence prevention and mental health support.
• As LMIC research populations often face compounded challenges that necessitate tailoring interventions to fit the specific context, interventions in LMICs should leverage community resources and emphasize local adaptability of interventions.
• Findings emphasize the importance of culturally sensitive intervention delivery and study methods; engagement with community stakeholders to gain participants access and trust; and the integration of interventions into existing health and education systems to simplify intervention delivery and research.

This systematic review and meta-analysis compared evidence of guided play to evidence of direct instruction or free play to support children’s learning and development. 39 studies were reviewed of which 17 were included in meta-analysis. Total sample size was 3893 children aged 1-8 years. Compared to direct instruction guided play had a greater positive effect on early maths skills, shape knowledge, and task switching. Compared to free play guided play had greater positive effect on spatial vocabulary. For other key outcomes differences were not found. There was heterogeneity in the conceptualization and implementation of guided play across studies.

Author: K. Skene, C.M. O’Farrelly, E.M. Byrne, N. Kirby, E.C. Stevens, & P.G. Ramchandani

Source: Skene, K., O’Farrelly, C. M., Byrne, E. M., Kirby, N., Stevens, E. C., & Ramchandani, P. G. (2022). Can guidance during play enhance children’s learning and development in educational contexts? A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Child Development, 93(4), 1162-1180. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13730

• There has been a debate in early childhood education (ECE) about the benefits of free play and direct instruction for children’s learning and development.
• Play-based learning acknowledges the combined benefits of play and traditional teaching.
• Guided play is a form of play-based learning, where degrees of child autonomy and adult guidance are varied.
• Guided play has been situated between free play and direct instruction.
• Although it is generally accepted that play supports children’s development and learning, a clear evidence base regarding the benefits of playful learning has been lacking.
• The term “guided play” has been used in several ways, thus it is important to understand the similarities and differences in the ways that studies use guidance during play.

Guided play and the theoretical basis for effectiveness

• Guided play has three fundamental characteristics: 1) The adult should have clear learning goal in mind; 2) The activity should allow children some degree of choice and agency over their play; 3) The adult should be flexible in their use of guidance techniques (e.g., by using open-ended questions, hints, prompts, modeling) to ensure sensitivity to the child’s interests and needs.
• The combination of these features is believed to make guided play a particularly powerful context for learning, compared with free play or didactic learning alone.
• While the label “guided play” is relatively recent, there is a strong conceptual basis grounded in developmental theory for its potential effectiveness.
• The interconnection between freedom and guidance, where the adult observes a child’s play with interest to determine when and how to intervene to support their learning, is a central tenet of Froebelian philosophy of education.
• The value of active learning and adult support is highlighted in developmental theories which underpin many existing ECE practices, such as Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding and Rogoff’s theory of guided participation.
• Guidance at appropriate times, for example, when a child appears to find an activity too difficult or too easy, can help them learn beyond what might be possible in independent play.
• Piagetian theory suggests that play fosters learning as it allows information to be gathered in meaningful and intrinsically motivating ways.
• Similarly, self-determination theory emphasizes that agency, experienced by children as they play, engenders their motivation to engage and learn.

Previous reviews and the present research questions

• Existing reviews have suggested that lower levels of guidance may increase levels of cognitive demand on children by exceeding the limitations of their working memory capacity. This suggests that there may be optimal levels of guidance for learning to occur.
• There is a need to consider how, and to what degree, adult guidance is implemented during interventions to better understand its potential effectiveness for learning and development.
• The existing reviews do not focus on play contexts.
• Two key research questions were addressed:
• how effective are guided play interventions for improving children’s learning and developmental outcomes compared to free play and direct instruction
• how is guided play conceptualized and implemented within experimental studies with respect to adult guidance and child choice?

Methods

• This review included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomized (or quasi-experimental) controlled trials, in which assignment was non-random but where the study otherwise resembles a randomized field experiment.
• Participants were children with a mean age of 1–8 years.
• Studies were included if they compared guided play to one or more control groups.
• Guided play was defined as an approach that involves: (a) child autonomy, (b) adult guidance, and (c) a learning goal.
• Eligible control conditions were free play or direct instruction/business-as-usual.
• Free play was defined as play which is initiated and directed by a child with no specified learning goal or adult involvement.
• Direct instruction was defined as the use of didactic teaching methods to explicitly instruct children of a skill or learning goal.
• Studies had to include at least one outcome relating to child learning and development, such as cognitive and academic learning, socioemotional development, or physical development.
• For continuous outcome measures, the Hedges’ g statistic was used to measure the effect size between the post-test scores of the intervention and comparison groups.
• Independent analyses were conducted for each of the following moderator variables: intensity of intervention exposure (1 to 5, 6 to 20, or >20 exposures), adult involved (parent, teacher, or researcher), number of child participants (<50 or ≥50), type of comparator (free play or direct instruction), and study design (randomized-or quasi-experimental).
• Narrative synthesis was used to examine textual references within studies to map the similarities and differences across studies in terms of their conceptualization and implementation of guided play.
• Content analysis was used to investigate the theoretical conceptualization and implementation of the interventions at a deductive level based on two categories: the degree of child choice and flexible adult guidance included.

Conclusions

• This review provides some evidence that guided play, compared to direct instruction, had a greater positive effect on executive function and maths.
• There were no differences between guided play and direct instruction for literacy or socioemotional outcomes.
• Although a single meta-analysis identified a large effect size favoring the benefits of guided play for spatial vocabulary over free play, this result should be interpreted cautiously given the high level of heterogeneity across the studies.
• Guided play studies with <50 participants had a significantly greater effect on learning outcomes while no difference was seen for studies with 50 or more participants.
• This review found some evidence that guided play interventions can support maths-based learning in the classroom.
• Guided play may be suitable for various early learning environments.
• It may be valuable to provide opportunities for children to learn in ways that are of interest to them personally.

The present scoping review includes 64 publications published since 2002 and evaluates learning through play (LtP) models that have been successfully used in Africa to inform the development of a suitable model for Kenya. The focus is on 1) What are the existing LtP approaches used in ECE in the African context?; 2) To what extent were the models effective and what contributed to their success?; 3) What challenges were experienced?; 4) Which aspects of LtP models are adaptable to the Kenyan context?. Various LtP models have significant benefits for learning and teaching. Play-based learning is feasible in the African context. Its implementation can be strengthened through leveraging existing LtP approaches, teacher capacity building, curriculum integration, provision of resources and involvement of all stakeholders.

Author: M. Nampijja, R. Muendo, G. E. Owino, S. Onyango, M. Mutisya, M. Abiero, K. Okelo, M. Ngarega, & P. Kitsao-Wekulo

Source: Nampijja, M., Muendo, R., Owino, G. E., Onyango, S., Mutisya, M., Abiero, M., Okelo, K., Ngagega, M. & Kitsao-Wekulo, P. (2024). Play-based Pedagogies for Early Learners in the African Context: A Scoping Review. African Journal of Education, Science and Technology (AJEST), 7(4), 173-190. https://ajest.org/index.php/ajest/article/view/422

• Play is natural behavior for children to develop physical, social, emotional, and creative development skills.
• Approaches to learning through play (LtP) leverage this natural behavior by several playful practices to support children’s learning at home, school, and community.
• Adults and peers are crucial facilitators and co-creators of play and a safe environment is required for children to develop to their full capabilities.
• In Africa, play has been a key tool children’s early socialization and development through songs, riddles, and games.
• However, pre-service and in-service teacher professional development does not always focus on building skills in play facilitation.
• In the present scoping review LtP is defined as approaches that
  • encourage children to enjoy learning through spontaneous, actively engaging, explorative, and sometimes adult-supported activities
  • provide children with opportunities to take initiative, focus their attention, nurture curiosity, and explore the environment
  • help children to acquire critical psychomotor, cognitive, and socio-emotional skills needed to learn and develop
  • may take place at school, home, or other environment.

Research questions:

• What are the existing LtP approaches used in ECE in the African context?
• To what extent were the models effective and what were the key factors (contextual) and mechanisms that contributed to their success?
• What challenges/barriers were experienced and how the lessons can be adapted to new models?

Methodology

A sequential approach was used:

• defining the research question, and scope
• identifying and generating relevant published articles from different databases
• screening and selection of eligible studies
• data extraction
• collating and summarizing the results

Eligibility criteria for the original research publication to be included:

• included participants from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
• was published from 2000 onwards
• included information on early learning for children up to 8 years
• was published in English.

Conclusions

• Children, teachers and caregivers are key players in play based learning since children drive the play while teachers and caregivers provide the guidance and modulation to make play more aligned with the learning objectives.
• It is important to consider the cultural aspects of a community and incorporate particular traditional play practices into any LtP model.
• It is important to find a link between what children learn in the community and what is taught in formal school, as this helps children associate what they learn in formal school and what they learn in the community.
• LtP should not only focus on school and school related activities, but also other settings where children gather such as home, playfields, work activities, churches or mosques and/or hospitals.
• Adults should be actively involved when developing and designing LtP models as they are key in facilitating learning.
• The use traditional/indigenous songs, tales and stories should be highly encouraged in the LtP model.
• It is also important to build the capacity of teachers to explore ways in which indigenous games, songs and play can be incorporated in the teaching curriculum.
• Play should be included as a major component and curriculum implementation should provide for use of play.
• Children’s interest should be central to curriculum planning while the subject/activity area should enrich and extend their learning for instance through integration of music in learning.
• Parent and community involvement is important.
• Policy commitment, a well-aligned teacher curriculum, funding and dedication to continuous teacher training in best practices in ECE including play-based approaches are likely to enhance the systemic capacity of the ECE sector for effective ECE delivery, ultimately optimizing academic outcomes for learners.

In early childhood education and care (ECEC) play is important, although its’ relationship to learning is often taken for granted. This article covers empirical research over a 40-year period and how the authors have used the concepts of play an learning. The conceptualization of the relation between play and learning has gone through changes during this period in a number of ways towards what is called Developmental Pedagogy. Children’s perspectives and teacher’s sensitivity and responsiveness are important features in preschool pedagogy.

Author: I. Pramling Samuelsson & C. Björklund

Source: I. Pramling Samuelsson & C. Björklund (2023). The relation of play and learning empirically studied and conceptualized. International Journal of Early Years Education, 31(2), 309-323. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2022.2079075

• There is consensus in early childhood education and care (ECEC) that play is important in education.
• However, the relationship between play and learning has not been self-evident during the past 40 years.
• Traditionally, learning has been viewed as an activity planned and organized by the teacher for distributing knowledge, while play has been considered to be the child’s own initiative and a world of fantasy.
• However, there is ambiguity of separating these two aspects and this article enlightens this problem and takes a step towards integrating them.
• The aim is to elaborate on how the relationship between play and learning is conceptualized and empirically studied within Developmental Pedagogy.

Background

• Play is an important part of preschool curricula globally.
• A key element in ECEC is ‘learning through play’, or ‘playful learning’, in which children have agency and control over their experience.
• Play can be organized and executed in different ways on a continuum from child-initiated to teacher-designed activities.
• ‘Play-based’ or ‘play-oriented’ followed by ‘preschool’, ‘education’, ‘pedagogy’, ‘curriculum’ and the like are frequently used terms, although there is no consensus of their differences and similarities, and combinations of them.
• Play-based pedagogy in ECEC includes first, that the child is an agent in his/her learning, and second, that the role of the teacher is not to be just an instructor, but rather an enabler that prepares an exploring-friendly environment.
• Nevertheless, there is still debate about if, how and why teachers should involve themselves in play for educational purposes.
• Developmental Education for children 3–8 years of age developed by Van Oers (2012) emphasizes the individuality of the children.
• Thus, teachers should work in design research studies, be critical of and creative in their practice with children, and allow children to actively exercise their agency. Making play as a key concept in education.
• A play-based curriculum takes playfully formatted cultural activities as contexts for learning.
• Central in play-based pedagogy is a close relationship between teachers and children and experiences of common everyday situations, through which a mix of everyday and scientific concepts is explored.
• Teachers’ knowledge, expertise and engagement should be based on the Vygotskian concept Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
• According to Lindqvist (2002), the teacher’s role is to act as an mediator and offer a common ‘play world’ to help child develop their skills of reproduction (memory) and production (creativity and imagination) in play through dramatized stories (literature).
• Fleer (2011) has developed ‘Conceptual Play-worlds’, a systematic approach where children and teacher jointly play, thus the teacher takes the role of both mediator and playmate.
• In conceptual Play-world, teacher participates throughout the play activity, aiming to offer children experiences of concepts that otherwise would be difficult to explain to young children.
• Play can be perceived as a continuum with high teacher participation in the choice of content and context offered to children on one end, and low teacher participation and interference on the other end.
• From the 1980s onward, interest in learning to know the child’s perspective as an outset for teaching and learning grew, emanating in a pedagogical approach called Developmental Pedagogy, thus play became a central feature of research.

Child perspective and children’s perspectives

• Child perspectives direct adults’ attention towards an understanding of children’s perceptions, experiences, and actions in the world.
• Children’s perspectives represent children’s experiences, perceptions, and understanding their life world.
• The authors’ have taken child’s perspective as the outset for both learning and play, meaning that learning starts from the child’s subjective world, but will lead to a new subjective world, which could be a qualitative new way of understanding something or expanding their world to become more extensive.
• The authors have taken a phenomenological approach where their interest is to identify and describe the phenomenon ‘play and learning’ as it appears in the research.
• The play-learning relationship particularly comes through in how the teacher’s role is reflected.
• The analytical approach is thereby holistic and driven by what emerges as essential and what is foregrounded in the research studies

Conclusions

• The concept of play in children’s learning is highlighted in UNICEF’s goal for sustainable development concerning children’s right to education.
• play is
• Play is a relevant feature of learning; however, conceptualizing the relation between play and learning is a complex effort, which is often influenced by policy on education, e.g. it is reflected in the curriculum and Education Act.
• This article shows the development from considering play as an ‘activity arranged by the teachers for children to process their learning’ to taking play as the outset for teaching content to be meaningful for children, building on the idea that ‘play and learning have to be integrated in pedagogy’.
• It is critical that teachers take part in children’s play without destroying or interrupting the play.
• The communication processes then comes into the foreground, a process in which children and teachers are involved in all kinds of activities moving between reality (as is) and fantasy (as if) while upholding sufficient intersubjectivity and thereby sharing experiences and meaning that facilitate the learning of meaningful content.
• The relation between play and learning has changed from a more or less taken-for-granted process, to an interest in better understanding and theorizing how learning and play work as intertwined features of a teaching practice suitable for preschool.
• There is a continuum of teachers’ roles and involvement in children’s play and learning, from facilitators to mediators and co-players.
• It is not enough to engage children in talking about their surrounding world, taking the Developmental Pedagogy approach also means to use metacommunication to get children to become aware of what is focused on in the communication, i.e. holding children’s perspectives as key.
• Earlier, the content on which children were to express their perspectives was introduced by the teacher. In later research, the teacher picks up on the child’s directed attention and contributes experiences that expand the child’s perspective. The recent approach has also a feature of responsiveness to the child’s intentions as a starting point for teaching.
• In Developmental Pedagogy, the communication processes are fusing the concepts of play or learning together building upon their similarities in character, not separating them.
• Play-responsive teaching brings for important insights of how to interact with children to enable play and learning through a balancing act of establishing intersubjectivity and offering alterations.
• A pedagogy for the twenty-first century ECEC adheres to the child’s perspective and offers the child the best opportunities to broaden and develop experiences and skills through play and learning.
• Consequences for policy is that curricula have to be revised and considered about play and learning is a new way.
• Implications for teachers are to take part in children’s play, following and contributing to the development of the play and of the content knowledge in focus, e.g. through meta-communication of what is going on.

References:

Fleer, Marilyn. 2011. “‘Conceptual Play’: Foregrounding Imagination and Cognition During Concept Formation in Early Years Education.” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 12 (3): 224–239. doi:10.2304/ciec.2011.12.3.224.

Lindqvist, Gunilla. 2002. “Lekens estetik.” Psyke & Logos 23: 437–450

van Oers, Bert. 2012. “Developmental Education: Foundations of Play-Based Curriculum.” In Developmental Education for Young Children. Concept, Practice and Implementation, edited by Bert van Oers, 13–25. Dordrecht: Springer.

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.

Self-regulation abilities are important predictors of educational success as well as income and health. This paper reports a randomized-controlled field study of the effects of a short self-regulation teaching unit for first graders which is based on the idea of mental contrasting with implementation intentions. The treatment increased children’s impulse control and self-regulation as well as academic skills such as reading and monitoring careless mistakes. In addition, it had an effect on children’s long-term school career by increasing the likelihood of enrolling in an advanced secondary school track three years later. The study concludes that self-regulation teaching is easily scalable and integrated into the regular school curriculum at low cost and can improve important abilities and educational career path of children.

Author: Daniel Schunk, Eva M. Berger, Henning Hermes, Kirsten Winkel & Ernst Fehr

Source: Schunk, D., Berger, E.M., Hermes, H., Winkel, K. & Fehr, R. (2022). Teaching self-regulation. Nat Hum Behav 6, 1680–1690. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01449-w

• Self-regulation means the ability to regulate attention, emotion, impulses, and behavior for pursuing one’s goals.
• It is important for children’s academic achievement as well as later life outcomes, such as income, wealth and health.
• It is the key skill for student success, especially during the increased usage of distance-learning methods in the 21st century.
• In this article, a short self-regulation teaching unit consisting of five lessons developed on the basis of ‘mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII)’ is presented.

What is MCII?

• MCII (mental contrasting with implementation intentions) is a metacognitive strategy addressing goal setting and striving and overcoming obstacles that are on the way of reaching one’s goals.
• MC part includes setting a goal and imagining the positive consequences of achieving the goal, thus enhancing goal commitment.
• It also includes thinking of the obstacles that prevent oneself of reaching the goal.
• II part includes identification of concrete behaviours for overcoming the obstacles and forming ‘when–then’ plans.
• ‘When—then’ plans consist of a concrete self-regulatory action whenever the identified obstacle emerges.
• II part is intended to automatize the implementation of behaviours that help overcome the obstacles.

The present study

Methods

The present study is a randomized field experiment with 572 schoolchildren in 31 first-grade classes in 12 schools in Germany.

• Treatment group: the children were taught five self-regulation lessons on the basis of MCII over five weeks. The lessons were tied to the teaching of practising reading and monitoring own mistakes. The children’s regular classteachers conducted the self-regulation teaching after they were instructed in a three-hour workshop how to implement the self-regulation teaching unit in the classroom and given full materials for the lessons.
• Control group: received regular classroom teaching consisting of language lessons (reading and writing) and mathematics lessons.
• For evaluating the treatment effects following measurements were used: standardized computer-based tests of children’s self-regulation abilities as well as their academic abilities in reading and mathematics. In addition, teachers’ assessments of the children’s reading and self-regulation skills were used.
• The outcome evaluations were carried out in four waves: prior to treatment (t0), 4–5 weeks after treatment (t1), 6 months after treatment (t2) and 12–13 months after treatment (t3). In addition, in a three-year follow-up, information about the children’s secondary school track enrolment was collected.

Teaching MCII to first graders

• First graders have limited abilities to understand general, abstract ideas and their reading and writing abilities are also very limited. In addition, they have limited goal setting skills, patience, attention span, and inhibition skills as well as a lack of perseverance and sense of responsibility for their own learning progress.
• To overcome these limited abilities, the MCII strategy was taught to the children through story telling.
• An illustrated storybook was used with a main character named ‘Hurdy’, the hurdle jumper, whose first goal is to climb to the top of a high mountain. Hurdy imagines the great view he will enjoy from the top of the mountain but contrasts this goal with the many hurdles he faces along the way. Hurdy’s when–then plan is that ‘when he faces a hurdle, then he jumps over it’. In this way, the abstract MCII strategy is conveyed in a playful and concrete manner for the children. The main character’s ideas and actions are used as a role model that helps to transfer the strategy to further goals, obstacles and plans.
• Once the general idea behind MCII was playfully introduced, the children subsequently applied it to three goals. The first goal was to become better in reading by practising reading out loud, because reading is a skill that is fundamental for all other subjects taught in primary school.
• The second goal was for the children to find careless mistakes in their own schoolwork by using a self-monitoring technique—the detection (and correction) of own mistakes.
• The third goal was individually chosen by each child.
• Every new goal was introduced with the help of the main character, Hurdy. After the teacher had read the story, the children themselves publicly discussed what they would enjoy most if they were able to read well. Likewise, after the teacher read aloud about the obstacles that Hurdy faced or the when–then rule that Hurdy developed, the children subsequently discussed publicly the hurdles they face themselves and possible when–then rules that help them overcome their obstacles.
• The children’s obstacles and plans thus become more and more personalized from goal one to goal three, implying an increasing need for own transfer thinking. In this context, classroom discourse also played an important role because it served the purpose of fostering the transfer of the MCII components from the role model’s thoughts, actions, and plans to the children’s individual context.

• Each child received a prepared workbook that visualized the different steps of the MCII strategy. The workbook also contained space so that the children could apply the strategy to their individual context with their own added drawings.
• The visual structure in combination with the individual drawings enables the children to internalize the MCII strategy without requiring reading or writing skills.
• Children’s limited perseverance was taken into account by spreading the five MCII teaching lessons over five weeks during which the children were encouraged to pursue progressively more ambitious sub-goals related to reading and monitoring their mistakes.
• To constantly remind them of the different steps of the MCII strategy, a large poster that looks exactly like the first figure in their workbook was on the wall in their classroom during the five weeks. In addition, flashcards were attached to the poster that reminded the children of the current goal, obstacles and plan.

Example of MMCI

• Setting a goal, e.g. becoming a better reader.
• Thinking the positive consequences of achieving the goal, e.g. why would you want to be a better reader, visualize it clearly
• Thinking of the obstacles that prevent you from achieving the goal, e.g. watching tv is easier for me than reading
• Thinking of when—then rules of how to overcome the obstacle, e.g. when I want to watch tv instead I ask my parents, friends or relatives to read with me.
• Keeping on the mind the positive consequences of achieving the goal and how you would enjoy when you have reached the goal.

Results

• MCII teaching already has a significant effect in t1 on the reading test, effect size = 0.20 standard deviation (s.d.), and the treatment effect in t3 becomes sizeable and highly significant, effect size = 0.39 s.d. A similar picture emerges from the teachers’ assessment of the children’s overall reading abilities.
• The teachers’ overall assessment of children’s ability to find careless mistakes follows a similar time pattern as their assessment of the overall reading ability: there is no treatment effect in t1, but significant and increasing treatment effects in t2, effect size = 0.47 s.d. and t3, effect size = 0.69 s.d.
• There was positive treatment effect on inhibition, effect size = 0.26 s.d. and attention, effect size = 0.56 s.d., 12–13 months after the treatment (t3).
• The teachers’ assessments of the children’s overall self-regulation behaviour in the classroom show a roughly similar time pattern: the treatment effect is significant and largest after 12–13 months, effect size = 0.57 s.d.
• MCII teaching had no impact on children’s mathematics skills (measured by arithmetic and geometry tests) and the letter discrimination task that requires stamina and frustration tolerance. These outcomes were not explicitly practiced during the MCII teaching. This suggests that first graders do not automatically generalize the MCII teaching to new academic domains or to tedious tasks that require stamina and high frustration tolerance.
• Children in the treatment group were 13.3 percentage points more likely to choose the advanced track of secondary schooling three years later, and the children’s performance in the reading test, their ability to find careless mistakes, and their overall self-regulation ability in t3 were important mediators of the treatment effect on school track choice.

Conclusions

• Self-regulation is generally thought to be of fundamental importance for children’s educational and lifetime success, and there is also a reason to believe that the earlier schoolchildren acquire self-regulation skills, the more they benefit from them in the long run.
• The findings indicate that five self-regulation teaching lessons spread over five weeks can be used to generate substantial improvements in academic skills—such as reading—that are part of the standard curriculum. In addition, teaching self-regulation has far-transfer effects on general inhibitory and attentional abilities and improves the children’s overall self-regulation behaviour in the classroom.
• The presented MCII intervention is conveyed in a playful, vivid, and meaningful manner and it is applied not only to one but to several different goals, making it more likely that children will internalize the metacognitive strategy, thus enhancing self-regulation behaviour at school in general.
• The implementation of the teaching lessons is associated with very little cost per child, as the teaching unit requires only a few hours of training for the teachers and five teaching lessons for the children.
• the proposed method of teaching self-regulation is also easily scalable to a much larger population, and if it is possible to apply self-regulation lessons to the teaching of reading skills, we see little reason why it should not be possible to apply the lessons to teach foreign languages or other academic subjects.

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