Early Education Settings Research Articles

Meals for Good: An innovative community project to provide healthy meals to children in early care and education programs through food bank catering.

Innovative approaches to childhood obesity prevention are warranted in early care and education (ECE) settings, since intervening early among youth is recommended to promote and maintain healthy behaviors. The objective of the Meals for Good pilot was to explore feasibility of implementing a food bank-based catering model to ECE programs to provide more nutritious meals, compared to meals brought from home (a parent-prepared model). In 2014–2015, a 12-month project was implemented by a food bank in central Florida in four privately-owned ECE programs. An explanatory sequential design of a mixed-methods evaluation approach was utilized, including a pre-post menu analysis comparing parent-prepared meals to the catered meals, and stakeholder interviews to determine benefits and barriers. The menu analysis of lunches showed daily reductions in calories, fat, and saturated fat, but an increase in sodium in catered meals when compared to parent-prepared meals. Interviews with ECE directors, teachers, parents, and food bank project staff, identified several benefits of the catered meals, including healthfulness of meals, convenience to parents, and the ECE program's ability to market this meal service. Barriers of the catered meals included the increased cost to parents, transportation and delivery logistics, and change from a 5 to a 2-week menu cycle during summer food service. This pilot demonstrated potential feasibility of a food bank-ECE program partnership, by capitalizing on the food bank's existing facilities and culinary programming, and interest in implementing strategies focused on younger children. The food bank has since leveraged lessons learned and expanded to additional ECE programs.

Like Peas and Carrots: Combining Wellness Policy Implementation With Classroom Education for Obesity Prevention in the Childcare Setting.

We evaluated an intervention combining policy training and technical assistance for childcare teachers with a nutrition education curriculum to improve (1) the knowledge and self-efficacy of childcare teachers in implementing obesity prevention policies and practices, (2) the quantity and quality of nutrition and physical activity education, and (3) the childcare wellness environment. Thirteen teachers and 8 administrators (2 of whom were also teachers) from 8 childcare programs in Clarke County, Georgia, participated in the Healthy Child Care Georgia intervention during June-October 2015. The intervention included (1) training and technical assistance on obesity prevention policies, systems, and practices and (2) direct education by teachers using the Eat Healthy, Be Active curriculum. We assessed changes in program wellness policy adoption and teacher knowledge and self-efficacy from pre- to post-intervention through self-report questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. Teachers' knowledge scores (maximum score = 100) rose significantly from a mean (SD) pre-intervention of 67.1 (14.6) to post-intervention of 83.2 (14.3) ( P < .001). The mean score for "teaching nutrition and activity to children" (maximum score = 105) rose significantly from 86.9 (8.2) to 93.5 (5.2) ( P = .011) and for "modeling and supporting children" (maximum score = 63) from 55.8 (5.1) to 59.5 (4.5) ( P = .015). The mean (SD) scores for breastfeeding and infant feeding policy/practice adoption (maximum score = 6) increased significantly from 2.5 (1.8) to 3.7 (1.9) ( P = .043) and for nutrition education policy/practice adoption (maximum score = 4) from 2.0 (1.3) to 3.3 (1.4) ( P = .019). The combined approach enhanced classroom nutrition education and improved the adoption of best practices. Future studies should examine the effects of using a combined approach to promote nutrition and physical activity policies and practices in the early care and education setting.

Leveraging Developmental Insights to Improve Early Childhood Education

AbstractPublic investments in early childhood education have increased sharply over the past three decades. Nonetheless, many children in the United States do not have access to high‐quality early education settings and large sociodemographic gaps in children's early learning remain. In this article, we argue that to address these issues, early learning policies must not only invest more in children's earliest years, but invest smarter. We describe three insights from developmental science and provide evidence that the current system of supports for early learning is at odds with what we now know about when and how children develop. We end with recommendations for anchoring early childhood policy and practice in developmental science, and improving children's interactions and learning experiences in their first years of life.

Does Absenteeism Differ for Children with Disabilities in Full-Day versus Part-Day Kindergarten?

ABSTRACTLittle is known about the effects of attending full-day versus part-day kindergarten for children with disabilities, and nothing is known about how these settings link to differences in children's school absences. This is concerning, given that children with disabilities have higher absence rates compared to children in the general population. To address this gap, this study examined a nationally-representative sample of kindergartners with disabilities and inquired into whether going to full- versus part-day kindergarten predicted differences in absences. Children with disabilities in full-day kindergarten had more total number of school days missed as well as a higher chance of being chronically absent compared to those children in part-day kindergarten. However, the size of this association was reduced for children with disabilities in lower-SES families and for boys with disabilities. There were no differences by disability category. Policy implications are discussed in terms of how early educational settings can be most supportive, and for whom.

Social marketing approaches to nutrition and physical activity interventions in early care and education centres: a systematic review.

Social marketing is a promising planning approach for influencing voluntary lifestyle behaviours, but its application to nutrition and physical activity interventions in the early care and education setting remains unknown. PubMed, ISI Web of Science, PsycInfo and the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health were systematically searched to identify interventions targeting nutrition and/or physical activity behaviours of children enrolled in early care centres between 1994 and 2016. Content analysis methods were used to capture information reflecting eight social marketing benchmark criteria. The review included 135 articles representing 77 interventions. Two interventions incorporated all eight benchmark criteria, but the majority included fewer than four. Each intervention included behaviour and methods mix criteria, and more than half identified audience segments. Only one-third of interventions incorporated customer orientation, theory, exchange and insight. Only six interventions addressed competing behaviours. We did not find statistical significance for the effectiveness of interventions on child-level diet, physical activity or anthropometric outcomes based on the number of benchmark criteria used. This review highlights opportunities to apply social marketing to obesity prevention interventions in early care centres. Social marketing could be an important strategy for early childhood obesity prevention efforts, and future research investigations into its effects are warranted.

‘They are too young to understand health’ a researchers reflexive account of researching with under fives

ABSTRACTQualitative research is an inherently complex landscape which continually presents researchers with difficult, ethically challenging dilemmas. This paper foregrounds some of those challenges, experienced during a qualitative research study which focused on preschool children’s opportunities to access different forms of play in early year education settings and the impact of this on their learner identities and understandings of health. Specifically, the paper focuses on the challenges faced by the researcher when addressing issues of access, including dealing with gatekeepers and the influence they potentially have upon the meaning and authenticity of the data collected. The analyses explore how well the three methods (interviews, structured activities and observations) employed to ensure that the voices of young children, rather than those of gatekeepers and other adults, were captured by the research process, reflected their views, and recognised them as active, embodied, social agents.

Evaluation of a multi-year policy-focused intervention to increase physical activity and related behaviors in lower-resourced early care and education settings: Active Early 2.0.

Physical activity is a critical component of obesity prevention, but few interventions targeting early childhood have been described. The Active Early guide was designed to increase physical activity in early care and education (ECE) settings. The purpose of Active Early 2.0 was to evaluate the effectiveness of Active Early along with provider training, microgrant support, and technical assistance over 2 years (2012–2014) to increase physical activity and related behaviors (e.g., nutrition) in settings serving a high proportion of children from underserved groups in recognition of significant disparities in obesity and challenges meeting physical activity recommendations in low-resource settings. The physical activity and nutrition environment were assessed before and after the intervention in 15 ECE settings in Wisconsin using the Environment and Policy Observation Assessment tool, and interviews were conducted with providers and technical consultants. There was no significant change in Total Physical Activity Score or any EPAO subscale over the intervention period; however, significant improvements in the Total Nutrition Score and the several Nutrition subscales were observed. Additionally, the percentage of sites with written activity policies significantly increased. Overall minutes of teacher-led physical activity increased to 61.5 ± 29.0 min (p < 0.05). Interviews identified key benefits to children (i.e., more energy, better rest, improved behavior) and significant barriers, most notably care provider and child turnover and low parent engagement. Moderate policy and environmental improvements in physical activity and nutrition were achieved with this intervention, but more work is needed to understand and address barriers and to support sustained changes in lower-resource ECE settings.

Scaling up from Rural: Child Health Initiative for Lifelong Eating and Exercise (CHILE) Plus Nutrition and Physical Activity Education Program in New Mexico Early Care and Education Settings

Participants will understand the unique nature of expanding a small program developed in rural New Mexico statewide Participants will learn how a multi-modal approach to providing training and technical assistance to non-nutrition professionals in carrying out Participants will learn the barriers and facilitators to implementing a comprehensive nutrition and physical activity program in the ECE setting.

Table Talk: development of an observational tool to assess verbal feeding communications in early care and education settings.

Children's dietary intake impacts weight status and a range of short- and long-term health outcomes. Accurate measurement of factors that influence children's diet is critical to the development and evaluation of interventions designed to improve children's diets. The purpose of the current paper is to present the development of the Table Talk observational tool to measure early care and education teachers' (ECET) verbal feeding communications. An observational tool to assess ECET verbal communication at mealtimes was deigned based on the extant literature. Trained observers conducted observations using the tool during lunch for both lead and assistant ECET. Descriptive statistics, test-retest for a subgroup, interclass correlations for each item, and comparisons between leads and assistants were conducted. Head Start centres, Southern USA. Seventy-five Head Start educators. On average, 17·2 total verbal feeding communications (sd 8·9) were observed per ECET. For lead ECET, the most prevalent Supportive Comment was Exploring Foods whereas for assistants Making Positive Comments was the most prevalent. Overall, lead ECET enacted more Supportive Comments than assistant ECET (F(2,72)=4·8, P=0·03). The most common Unsupportive Comment was Pressuring to Eat, with a mean of 3·8 (sd 4·3) and a maximum of 25. There was no difference in Unsupportive Comments between lead and assistant ECET. Table Talk may be a useful tool to assess verbal feeding communications of ECET, with potential applications such as informing ECET training and assessing intervention efforts.

Effects of multimedia story reading and questioning on preschoolers’ vocabulary learning, story comprehension and reading engagement

The use of multimedia story applications on touch-interactive mobile devices has become prevalent in early education settings. However, despite the promise of multimedia story applications for early learning outcomes, there has been a dearth of research on the educational benefits of such tools, and whether their effects can be strengthened with the integration of questioning strategies. This study investigated the effects of multimedia story reading and questioning on children’s literacy skills, including vocabulary learning, story comprehension and reading engagement. Using a 2 (multimedia vs. paper) × 2 (question vs. no question) design, a total of 72 participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: multimedia story reading, multimedia story reading with questioning, paper story reading, and paper story with questioning. To identify the effects of Media and Questioning on children’s vocabulary learning, story comprehension, and reading engagement, we conducted a series of two-way ANCOVAs, controlling for different covariates as appropriate. The results showed significant interaction of media and questioning on target vocabulary and significant main effect of media for engagement, but the results showed no significant main effects of either media or questioning for comprehension. This study demonstrated research tools to examine children’s learning and engagement with interactive mobile devices, and suggested potential benefits of multimedia story reading and questioning for learning. We discuss implications of these findings for the design and use of multimedia storybooks.

A Qualitative Application of the Belsky Model to Explore Early Care and Education Teachers' Mealtime History, Beliefs, and Interactions

ObjectiveStudies on factors associated with nutrition practices in early care and education settings often focus on sociodemographic and programmatic characteristics. This qualitative study adapted and applied Belsky's determinants of parenting model to inform a broader exploration of Early Care and Education Teachers (ECETs) practices. DesignQualitative cross-sectional study with ECETs. SettingThe researchers interviewed ECETs in their communities across a Southern state. ParticipantsPurposive sampling was employed to recruit ECETs (n = 28) from Head Start or state-funded centers serving low-income families. Phenomenon of InterestDevelopmental histories of ECETs regarding food and nutrition, beliefs about child nutrition, and teaching interactions related to food. AnalysisQualitative interviews were coded using a deductive content analysis approach. ResultsThree distinct interrelationships were observed across the themes. First, rules and routines regarding food and mealtime in the educators' childhood often aligned with educator beliefs and behaviors at meals in their classroom. Second, some ECETs described motivations to leave a healthy food legacy for children in their class. Finally, an experience of food insecurity appeared in narratives that also emphasized making sure children got enough through various strategies. Conclusions and ImplicationsThe influence of ECET developmental histories and their related beliefs can be addressed through professional development and ongoing support. Future study should quantify model constructs in a larger sample and study their relationships over time.

In-service Preschool Teachers’ Thoughts about Technology and Technology Use in Early Educational Settings

The purpose of this study is to understand in-service preschool teachers’ thoughts about technology and technology use in early educational settings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 in-service preschool teachers. These teachers were selected from public and private preschools. Convenient sampling was applied because teachers who were eager to attend the study were selected. Content analysis technique was used to analyze the data. Based on the content analysis, eleven main themes as to technology related views and practices of in-service preschool teachers emerged. Findings of the study indicated that the majority of in-service teachers had positive views about appropriate technology use in preschool education. Findings also showed that early educational settings need to be equipped with adequate technologies. Moreover, in-service preschool teachers emphasized that they expect to be supported by the preschool curriculum and several programs aiming at enhancing their technology use skills. Lastly, teachers were aware of not only the advantages of technology but also the potential disadvantages. Results of the study may help instructional designers, researchers and practitioners better integrate new technologies into preschool education.

Artful Dodgers: an arts education research project in early education settings

Artful Dodgers is an arts education project developed by two artists and delivered in two early years settings located in two areas of urban disadvantage. It is a music and visual arts programme designed and implemented with early years teachers of children aged 3–5 years. It explored whether the provision of high-quality arts experiences could enhance children’s emerging literacy and numeracy. A novel ‘artist in(formed) residency’ model was developed within a unique arts education research design. Piloting a tripartite relationship between researchers, artists and early years teachers, this study was situated within a qualitative action research paradigm, with both artists located in both services weekly over a 12-week period. The evaluation of the programme indicates changes in pedagogical planning and style in the early years teachers over the period of the artists’ residency. Their language became more reflective and their practice incorporated a wider and richer range of materials; there was greater evidence of more child-led activities and unstructured play opportunities over the duration of the study. The data suggest that children’s social, cooperative and communication skills were enhanced. Recommendations have implications for the professional development of artists and teachers working in early years settings.

A Development Evaluation Study of a Professional Development Initiative to Strengthen Organizational Conditions in Early Education Settings

A Development Evaluation Study of a Professional Development Initiative to Strengthen Organizational Conditions in Early Education Settings

Sounds of Education: Teacher Role and Use of Voice in Interactions with Young Children

Voice is a basic tool in communication between adults. However, in early educational settings, adult professionals use their voices in different paralinguistic ways when they communicate with children. A teacher’s use of voice is important because it serves to communicate attitudes and emotions in ways that are often ignored in early childhood classroom research. When teachers take different roles in relation to children, they use their voice with different pitch, melody, and loudness. This research examined how various acoustic elements in teachers’ voices are associated with different teaching roles when explored from a child-sensitive perspective. The paper proposes an analytical framework in order to characterize paralinguistic elements in teacher’s voices with potential consequences for children’s affective responses. The paper analyzes auditory elements (pitch, melody, and loudness) that can be recognized in the voices of adult professionals. These are categorized with reference to four different teacher roles: a mentor role, a nurturer role, a controller role, and a playmate role. The findings reveal how auditory elements of teachers’ voices need consideration when planning and evaluating educational practice.

Developing Autism Screening Criteria for the Brief Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (BITSEA).

There is a critical need for evidence-based, broadband behavioral, and ASD screening measures for use in pediatric and early educational settings to ensure that young children at risk for developing social-emotional disorders and/or ASD are provided with early intervention services to optimize long-term outcomes. The BITSEA is a 42-item screener designed to identify social-emotional/behavioral problems and delays/deficits in social-emotional competence among 11-48-month-olds; 19 items describe behaviors consistent with ASD. Secondary data analysis was employed to develop cut-scores for ASD subscales using Receiver Operating Curves, discriminating children with (n = 223) and without (n = 289) ASD. Cut-scores demonstrated moderate-to-high discriminative power, sensitivity, specificity, and PPV. Findings highlight feasibility of using a broadband social-emotional competence and behavior problem screener to improve early detection of ASD.

Preschool teachers’ endorsement of instructional practices: an interprofessional exploration

Background: Preschool teacher’s instructional practices are one component of high-quality early education classrooms that have the potential to directly influence young children’s school readiness and success; therefore, the type and quality of instructional practices used by preschool teachers should be explored.Purpose: The purpose of this study was to expand our understanding of instructional practices reported by preschool teachers as most or least characteristic of their classroom teaching across three domains: classroom climate, emotional socialisation and language and literacy.Sample: Participants in the present study included 150 teachers from early educational settings across the state of Arizona.Design and methods: Teachers completed a demographic survey and Q-sort task. The Q-sort comprised 80 instructional practices that have been shown to influence children’s school readiness in terms of specific skills and later school outcomes.Results: Descriptive analyses revealed the least and most endorsed practices across and within the domains of interest. The key finding was consistent with previous research revealing that the most commonly endorsed practices were those that target children’s skills via the classroom climate.Conclusions: Implications for professional development and early childhood teacher preparation are discussed alongside the interprofessional nature of this research.

Generative text sets: Tools for negotiating critically inclusive early childhood teacher education pedagogical practices

ABSTRACT Through a case study, this article sheds light onto generative text sets as tools for developing and enacting critically inclusive early childhood teacher education pedagogies. In doing so, it positions teaching and learning processes as sociocultural, historical, and political acts as it inquires into the use of generative text sets in one early childhood teacher education setting. Drawing on critical pedagogy and critical literacy as frameworks, this article seeks to shed light onto the affordances of such tools for preparing early childhood teachers to work in diverse settings in critically inclusive and culturally relevant ways.

‘How do you feel? What is your heart doing?’ … ‘It’s jumping’: the body and health in Early Years Education

ABSTRACTPolicy agendas for early childhood education in the UK as in many countries elsewhere are driven by expectations that play will impact positively on a child’s educational attainment, health and well-being. This paper focuses on health knowledge, social class and cultural reproduction within early year education in England, looking specifically at how health discourse is framed by Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) policy imperatives and subsequently by practitioners as they re-contextualise health knowledge through play across three socially and culturally different early years education (EYE) settings within England. Across the three settings, 15 practitioners and 80 children, aged 3–4 years old, participated in the research. Drawing on the theoretical work of Basil Bernstein particularly his concepts, ‘pedagogic device’ and ‘classification’ (c) and ‘framing’ (f), the paper documents how health is designed, defined, constructed and experienced through play pedagogy within each of these EYE settings. The analyses illustrate how the different organisational and curriculum structures, pedagogical interactions and transactions of each setting cultivate distinctive relationships to health knowledge. These relationships, in turn, play their part in the reproduction of social class and cultural inequalities, despite the best intentions of EYE policy to address these matters.

Child-centred educational practice in different early education settings: Associations with professionals’ attitudes, self-efficacy, and professional background

The present study investigated whether teacher beliefs (self-efficacy and attitudes) mediate the impact of professional background on child-centred educational practice. We specifically investigated whether teacher beliefs related to self (self-efficacy) are a stronger predictor of educational practice than teacher beliefs related to teaching approach (attitudes). A total of 265 professionals from different early education and care settings (i.e., centre-based daycare, family-based daycare, and educational playgroups) in Switzerland participated in the study. A self-report questionnaire was developed to assess professionals’ self-efficacy, attitudes and educational practice in terms of child-centredness. The results confirm the factorial validity of the questionnaire. Self-efficacy positively predicted educational practice, while professionals’ attitudes were not associated with educational practice. Further, the positive effect of domain-specific knowledge on educational practice was mediated by self-efficacy. Finally, family daycare providers reported lower self-efficacy and lower levels of child-centred educational practice than other professionals. The present study emphasises the role of professionals’ self-efficacy in the context of delivering high-quality childcare and child-centred education in early childhood. The results suggest that promoting knowledge of teaching approaches may be a promising way to promote early childhood educators’ child-centred educational practice through increasing their self-efficacy.