Research on Preschool and Primary Education

Demographic variations on spatial assembly skills: Evidence from Turkish preschoolers

Umit Unsal Kaya — 2025-03-12

This study examined how demographic factors relate to the spatial assembly skills of preschool children. The research included 270 children randomly selected from 25 preschools in Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. Spatial assembly skills were assessed using the Turkish-adapted Test of Spatial Assembly (TOSA), which includes two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) subtests. The findings revealed that girls significantly outperformed boys in the 2D subtest, while no gender difference observed in the 3D subtest. The order of birth and the number of children in the family had marginal associations with children's 2D performance, but parental age, education level or occupational groups did not display statistically significant relationships with children's spatial skills. Although these results suggest certain demographic patterns, causation cannot be inferred due to the descriptive design of this study. Environmental factors and individual experiences likely contribute to the differences observed. The limitations of this study include the cross-sectional nature of the data and the lack of a direct measurement on the home learning environment. The findings emphasize the importance of tailored educational interventions and family-focused strategies to foster early spatial skills of the children. Future research should adopt longitudinal designs and explore additional environmental variables to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that shape the development of children's spatial skills.

Encouraging young children's autonomy by supporting their fine motor skills development

Hellen Vretudaki — 2025-03-05

A significant number of children in Greece, observed through their interaction with school materials, enter preschool with underdeveloped fine motor skills. Many children struggle, to varying degrees, with activities in the classroom, whether individually or in groups. As a result, children advance to primary school unprepared. In several European countries, preschool education includes object manipulation workshops that improve fine motor, cognitive and emotional skills. Based on these findings, a study was designed to assess the effectiveness of such workshops in Greek kindergartens. Preschool teachers in Iraklion, Crete, participated in a training program, in which they were instructed to create and implement object manipulation workshops in their classrooms. The workshops were designed to be playful while also fostering a variety of skills. To evaluate the outcomes of the study, teachers were given a questionnaire with open-ended questions. The content analysis of the responses revealed that, due to their engaging and playful nature, the workshops encouraged children's participation, enhanced their concentration and improved their fine motor skills. The children demonstrated a strong creative inclination, used the materials in innovative ways and even designed new workshops themselves.

Accounting for the unaccounted: Examining linguistic diversity in the classroom and the communicative experiences of dual language learners in the United States

Chin R. Reyes — 2025-02-13

Communication-rich early learning environments are essential to preschoolers’ language and social development but there is limited information about what happens to their communicative experiences when they are in classrooms that are comprised of preschoolers who are learning simultaneously other languages, in addition to English (i.e., dual language learners or DLLs). Employing a time sampling technique, the present study explores how linguistic diversity in the classroom, measured by the Simpson’s index, can promote or hinder verbal, nonverbal, and paraverbal communicative experiences of both DLLs and non-DLLs. Findings revealed that in more linguistically diverse classrooms both DLLs and non-DLLs displayed less positive affect in general, and teachers displayed less attunement to both DLLs and non-DLLS, albeit in different ways. Moreover, in more linguistically diverse classrooms, DLLs displayed less engagement in classroom activities than did non-DLLs, and non-DLLs were observed to interact less with DLLs than with non-DLLs. Directions for the potential of using a more nuanced way to measure linguistic diversity and an observational tool to capture a broader, holistic view of communicative experiences of children in the classroom are discussed, as are implications for research, practice, and policy.

Reading development of Chinese-English bilingual early elementary children: Variations by student sociocultural characteristics during COVID-19 in Canada

Guofang Li — 2025-04-11

In this two-year longitudinal study, multiple analytical methods of analysis were used to examine the development of reading comprehension, decoding, and oral receptive vocabulary among Chinese-English bilinguals (N = 135) in Canada during grades 2 and 3, as well as the sociocultural factors influencing their academic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. One-sample t-tests revealed that while Chinese-Canadian children's reading comprehension and decoding skills were comparable to monolingual norms, their English receptive vocabulary significantly lagged behind the normative mean. Independent samples t-tests indicated a pandemic-related decline in reading skills over two years, with significant reductions in decoding, particularly among Mandarin-speaking children. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analyses showed that gender significantly moderated reading comprehension development, while family socioeconomic status (SES) was strongly associated with growth in decoding and oral receptive vocabulary. These findings highlight the need for post-pandemic recovery efforts focused on vocabulary development and decoding support, particularly for children from intersectionally disadvantaged backgrounds.

''How do families know what makes a great bush kinder? '' : understanding the provision of nature-based early childhood education programs in Victoria, Australia

Christopher Speldewinde — 2024-12-10

Bush kinders, one example of a nature-based approach to early childhood education, is rapidly becoming a staple of Australian providers’ programs. Since the early 2010s, the Australian state of Victoria has been a place where these nature-based programs have been on the rise. With increasing bush kinder numbers due to government initiatives and a deeper community understanding of the benefits of young children spending time in nature, we began to investigate the factors, such as location, session frequency and age grouping of sessions (e.g. 3 or 4 year old children), would allow families to have a deeper understanding of the provision of these nature-based approaches to early childhood education and care. We probed the importance of socioeconomic factors and quality assessment processes in kindergartens to understand whether these factors determine the bush kinder program provision. We also sought to understand the publicly available resources that inform families and educators about bush kinder provision. This paper is informed by a longitudinal ethnographic study of bush kinders. It applies Naidoo’s stocktake approach to gather qualitative data drawn from a desktop review of web-based, publicly available secondary sources including academic publications, government reports, books, and electronic databases. Focusing on Victoria where bush kinders are proliferating partly due to state government initiatives, in this paper we ask, what measures exist to understand the provision of Australian nature-based early childhood education programs? The study finds that a detailed database of Australian bush kinders is needed for families to make informed decisions about services who offer nature-based programs as part of their ECEC. Location, socio-economic and quality assurance ratings data that allow us to understand characteristics of Australian nature-based early childhood education settings are of value for families to understand the bush kinder programs available to their children.

Let's play and talk! Early years teachers' professional learning to support children's language development

Eleni Tympa — 2025-04-25

Let's Play and Talk aims to support early years teachers' (EYT) Professional Learning and Development (PLD) on the topic of children's language development through narrative and pretend play. The current PLD programme was delivered in five two-hour face-to-face sessions. During these sessions, the research team utilised PowerPoint presentations, video observations and role play between teachers to provide training on various applicable topics. The design of the study is a randomised wait-list controlled trial with 10 EYT. A focus group discussion was conducted with teachers, to determine teachers' understanding of dialogic reading, vocabulary, and narrative development, pretend play, and the role of the adult in children's play. Teachers' demographic characteristics were also collected prior to the first focus group discussion. Results indicated that by the end of the training, EYT had an enhanced knowledge of the components of the intervention, learned from the focused training and used evidence-based material to support children's language development. The model of PLD used, being explicit and hands-on, exceeded teachers' expectations.

5-6 years old children's mental representations of water in plants

George Kaliampos — 2024-11-26

The concept of water holds a central position in almost every curriculum that is developed within early childhood education. The current study presents the findings of research on the way 5–6 year old children deal with the issue of the existence of water in plants. The research was qualitative and was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 66 children. The data was analyzed using content analysis based on the transcripts of the interviews. The results showed that only a small number of children were able to conceptualize the existence of water in plants, however these children were able to describe and make predictions that were in line with school knowledge. Consequently, this field constitutes an interesting area for further research and development of properly designed activities. Limitations of the current research were the restricted and convenient sample as well as the choice of descriptive analysis.

Public education teachers' perspectives on the role of active listening in enhancing students' well-being in educational environments

Dafni Petkou — 2025-04-03

The study investigates public school teachers' perceptions of how active listening contributes to students' well-being in educational environments. Twelve teachers from different regions in Greece, with diverse educational backgrounds and experience participated in this research. Using qualitative methodology, the study explored teachers' understanding of active listening, its implementation in classrooms, and its impact on students' well-being. The findings revealed that active listening fosters a climate of trust, emotional safety, and acceptance, enabling students to express their feelings and needs. Teachers highlighted empathy, patience, and communication skills as essential skills in order for active listening to be achieved. They identified challenges like limited time, large class sizes, and student attention issues. In spite of these obstacles, teachers emphasized the positive effects of active listening on students’ self-esteem, emotional expression, and classroom relationships. The study concludes that active listening is a crucial tool for promoting students' mental well-being and enhancing educational outcomes. Future research is suggested to address implementation challenges and develop teacher training programs.

The Chicago Child-Parent Center early-childhood program: A critical appraisal

Geert Driessen — 2025-02-25

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) interventions are often the core of policies to tackle educational disadvantage. They target socio-economically disadvantaged children and aim to improve their educational and life chances by providing compensatory stimulation activities in education institutions and at home. Many intervention programs have been developed and implemented since the 1960s. Three renowned so-called model programs are Perry Preschool, Abecedarian, and the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC). Though they date from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, respectively, they are still often cited today as evidence that such programs are highly effective and that their effects can be generalized to later ECEC programs. This article focuses on the CPC and – if possible – makes comparisons with Perry and Abecedarian. The main question is whether this program really leads to positive effects, and if it does, whether these effects can be generalized to other, similar programs today. To find an answer to this question, a critical literature study was conducted, using the snowball method. On the basis of the hundreds of studies examined, it was concluded that, indeed, CPC yielded many positive effects in the domains of education, work, well-being, health, and crime. At the same time, several limitations were found, which seriously restricts its generalization.

Fostering teachers' professional autonomy in Taiwanese private kindergartens through systemic practical situated reflection within a collaborative learning community

Joni Tzuchen Tang — 2025-03-26

The issue of professional autonomy among teachers in Taiwanese private kindergartens has grown increasingly critical in the context of professional learning and development (PLD) within early childhood education. This study adopted action research within a collaborative learning community framework, implementing the Systemic Practical Situated Reflection (SPSR) mechanism over 18 months. Professional autonomy is defined as teachers' capacity to make informed decisions regarding their teaching practices and professional growth. The findings of this study indicate that: 1) the involvement of experts within the learning community promotes reflective practices from diverse perspectives, which enhances teachers' autonomy; 2) the SPSR mechanism effectively supports professional growth within this community; and 3) ongoing weekly reflections empower teachers to address and overcome challenges in their educational environments. The SPSR framework developed in this study provides valuable insights into how professional autonomy can be fostered among educators, offering a model for PLD that can be applied beyond the context of Taiwanese private kindergartens.