Effective Provision Of Preschool Education Research Articles

Towards the transformation of practice in early childhood education: the effective provision of pre‐school education (EPPE) project

The introduction of the Foundation Stage and its associated legislation has constituted a radical innovation that is transforming early childhood education. In this paper we show how the Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) research programme continues to contribute towards achieving these improvements in practice. In focusing upon the EPPE programme's influence upon pedagogic practice in particular, the paper draws predominantly upon the research findings and recommendations associated with our qualitative case studies. This work was first published in the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) report in 2002, and in the EPPE Technical Paper 10 in 2003. Practitioners respond positively to research when it is focused on specific teaching and learning contexts and practices. The EPPE project therefore applied Environment Rating Scales to identify the quality of educational provision, and used multilevel analysis to isolate the independent variables of most significance in explaining variations in the progress and development of young children during their time in pre‐school. The multi‐level analysis identified ‘good’ and ‘excellent’ centres, based on measurable child outcomes. Twelve of these centres were selected for in‐depth qualitative case study enquiries that both extended and triangulated the quantitative analysis. This paper shows how the qualitative findings, as well as some of the data that they have been drawn from, have subsequently been applied to provide the practical guidance and exemplar resources needed in the development and improvement of early years educational practice.

‘Would you like to tidy up now?’ An analysis of adult questioning in the English Foundation Stage

This study provides an extension of analysis concerned with adult questioning carried out in the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) study. The REPEY study drew on robust quantitative data provided by the Effective Provision of Pre‐School Education (EPPE) project to identify the particular pedagogical strategies being applied by more effective pre‐school settings to support the development of the skills, knowledge and attitudes that enable their children to make a good start at school. Following a line of investigation identified in the EPPE analysis, and supported by previous studies, REPEY included a preliminary analysis of the forms of questioning applied by early childhood practitioners. These findings were based on 1967 adult questions identified in a random sample of four half‐day observations drawn from each of the 12 pre‐school settings that were identified by EPPE as more ‘effective’. In this extension of the analysis a text search of the N‐Vivo database identified a total of 5808 questions across the full 400 hours of observations of 28 staff that were recorded in 2000–2001. The aim of the research has been to provide a more thorough analysis of the forms of questioning applied, and to investigate the possibility that the use of open‐ended forms of questioning might be particularly supportive in early childhood development. Surprisingly, it was found that 94.5% of all the questions asked by the early childhood staff were closed questions that required a recall of fact, experience or expected behaviour, decision between a limited selection of choices or no response at all. Only 5.5% were open‐ended questions, which provided for increased encouragement (to speculate and trial and error) and/or potential for sustained, shared thinking/talking. This article provides an account of the analysis and the authors' coding and rationale for the seven types of closed questions and four types of open‐ended questions that are most commonly asked by early years staff.

Early Years services in Britain 1997‐2007: a quiet revolution?

This article analyses UK Early Years policy in terms of service expansion and service transformation since the Labour Government's election in 1997. Childcare is now a matter of public policy, driven largely by concerns about child poverty and inequalities in children's life chances. The evidence is considered, first, on service expansion, increased take‐up and increased employment by parents with young children, and, second, on service transformation and child outcomes: to what extent have changes benefited disadvantaged children, families and neighbourhoods? The Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) research shows that pre‐school can boost disadvantaged children's intellectual development in particular, and the article concludes that programmes such as Sure Start and Neighbourhood Nurseries have been successfully targeted at the most disadvantaged areas, although better‐off families and neighbourhoods may have benefited even more, and that problems of cost and sustainability remain. It is too early to judge whether better integrated services now being developed will be successful in transforming the lives of the most disadvantaged children.

Curricular quality and day‐to‐day learning activities in pre‐school

The purpose of this paper is to show how curricular quality is related to the day‐to‐day activities experienced by children and the pedagogical activities of staff, both coded through systematic target‐child observations. Data were drawn from the Effective Provision of Pre‐School Education (EPPE) and the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) studies. Curricular quality was measured by coding the ECERS‐E, an English curricular extension to the well‐known ECERS‐R. In centres scoring high on the ECERS‐E, staff engaged in pedagogical practices that included more ‘sustained shared thinking’ and more ‘direct teaching’ such as questioning or modelling. In high‐scoring centres, children were also observed participating in more activities associated with early reading, emergent writing and active listening. Children in centres assessed as ‘adequate’ spent more time in activities associated with the ‘Physical Development’ and ‘Creative’ curriculum. Thus the ECERS‐E gives higher scores to pedagogical practices and activities where staff take a more active role in children’s learning, including scaffolding young children’s play, especially in the communication and literacy domains of the curriculum.

Educational Research and Evidence-based Policy: The Mixed-method Approach of the EPPE Project

In a review of the challenges to progress in providing social research evidence that might usefully inform policy, Oakley (2004) argues strongly that the ‘paradigm divide’ between qualitative and quantitative research communities continues to constitute a major problem. Oakley refers to a number of recent critiques of what is seen as ‘misplaced positivism’ in educational research and Hammersley (1997, 2005) has suggested that educational research findings are now routinely being applied uncritically to inform educational policy and practice. Research in early childhood education has not been immune to these general criticisms and specific concerns have also been expressed regarding alleged technicism, and the reification of dominant conceptions of early educational quality. In this paper we test these theoretical claims against the realities of conducting one recent and influential early years study: the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) Project. The paper provides an account of the EPPE r...

Early identification of special educational needs and the definition of ‘at risk’: The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) Project

Education in the early years is a key element in the Government's current strategy. Recently, the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) funded a major study of Effective Provision of Pre‐School Education (EPPE). The Early Years Transition and Special Educational Needs (EYTSEN) Project developed from the EPPE research and was also funded by the DfES. The authors of this article, Brenda Taggart, Pam Sammons, Rebecca Smees, Kathy Sylva, Edward Melhuish, Iram Siraj‐Blatchford, Karen Elliott and Ingrid Lunt, all worked on the EYTSEN Project, based at the Institute of Education, University of London. In this article, they provide a summary of the findings from the EYTSEN Project, reviewing the impact of pre‐school provision on children said to be ‘at risk’ of developing special educational needs. They suggest that pre‐school experience has a positive impact on cognitive attainment and social or behavioural development and that integrated centres (where education and care are fully combined) and nursery schools have the most positive influence among the different f o rms of pre‐school provision. This paper also discusses the identification of special educational needs; quality in pre‐school centres; parents' perspectives; and future developments. The article closes with a call for improved training for practitioners working in early years settings.

Investigating the Effects of Pre‐school Provision: Using Mixed Methods in the EPPE Research

The Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project is a longitudinal study of young children between the ages of 3 and 7 years. Research began in 1997 and both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to explore the effects of pre‐school education on children’s attainment and social/behavioural development at entry to school, and of any continuing effects on such outcomes at the end of Key Stage 1 (age 7). The sample included over 3,000 children and 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six different types of providers. In addition, a home sample of children who had not attended a pre‐school centre was included. In order to identify the processes that might influence centre effectiveness, observational data were collected and centre managers interviewed. In‐depth case studies of 12 more effective centres were used to explore and illuminate the processes, particularly in relation to pedagogy, associated with better child outcomes. A mixed method approach was adopted to simultaneously answer both confirmatory and exploratory questions, to support user engagement and provide triangulation. The paper argues that the mixed method approach supported the development of stronger research inferences.

Researching pedagogy in English pre‐schools

This article summarizes and reflects on the findings related to pedagogy of two closely associated Department for Education and Skills (DfES) funded research projects: the Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) and the Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (REPEY) projects.1 The EPPE research project was a five‐year longitudinal study funded by the DfES to follow the progress of approximately 3000 children, aged three plus, in 141 pre‐schools across England. In addition to the range of quantitative data collected about children, their families and their pre‐school centres, 12 effective pre‐school settings (selection based on child developmental outcomes) were identified in the EPPE multilevel analysis for intensive, in‐depth qualitative case study. The REPEY study provided an opportunity to extend this qualitative analysis further with both naturalistic and systematic observations, interviews and focus group discussions, and allowed the addition of two reception classes (selection ...

The impact of pre‐school on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to reception

This article explores the impact of pre‐school experience on young children's cognitive attainments at entry to primary school and analyses data collected as part of a wider longitudinal study, the Effective Provision of Pre‐school Education (EPPE) project, which followed a large sample of young children attending 141 pre‐school centres drawn from six types of provider in five English regions. The article compares the characteristics and attainments of the pre‐school sample with those of an additional ‘home’ sample (children who had not attended pre‐school) recruited at entry to reception. Multilevel analyses of relationships between child, parent and home environment characteristics and children's attainments in pre‐reading, early number concepts and language skills are presented. Duration of time in pre‐school is found to have a significant and positive impact on attainment over and above important influences such as family socio‐economic status, income, mother's qualification level, ethnic and language background. The research also points to the separate and significant influence of the home learning environment. It is concluded that pre‐school can play an important part in combating social exclusion by offering disadvantaged children, in particular, a better start to primary school.

Comparing specialist early years provision for speech and language impaired children with mainstream nursery provision in the UK – an application of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS)

This study examines the application of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) to specialist early years provision for children with developmental speech and language impairment. The scale, which has been used in the national Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) study in the UK comprises seven subscales describing the quality of provision along a continuum centred on the following areas: 'space and furnishings', 'personal care routines', 'language reasoning', 'activities', 'interaction', 'program structure', and 'parents and staff'. The ECERS was applied to two nurseries funded by the UK charity I CAN by two researchers with inter-rater-reliability coefficients ranging from 0.91 to 0.96. There were notable differences between the specialist early years provision and 'average' nursery provision in the UK. On 7/8 measures the early years centre scores are markedly higher than average pre-school provisions. The standard of education and care for the pre-school provisions included in the EPPE project ranged from below minimal (for the diversity subscale, ECERS-E) to approaching good (for the space and furnishings subscale). In contrast, the early years centres were rated as between minimal to good on areas such as space and furnishings and good to excellent on all other areas. Clearly specialist services such as those described offer something different from the average. Given results which suggest the positive effects on the children's language abilities of such services it is quite possible that the distinctive characteristics of the nursery environment are responsible for the positive impact. There is a good case for extending the application of the ECERS as a way of helping those providing specialist services start to detect the active ingredients of the provision.

Quality of Chilean Early Childhood Education from an International Perspective Qualité de l'Education Préscolaire Chilienne dans une Perspective Internationale Calidad de la Educacio´n Preescolar Chilena desde una Perspectiva Internacional

The aim of the study was to assess the quality of the different types of Chilean early childhood care and education programmes according to international standards. The sample included 120 centres representing the different types of pre-school programmes available, randomly selected from two different geographical regions of the country, where 52% of the population lives. This paper presents the structural and process characteristics observed in the classrooms, according to the results from the application of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). All the different types of pre-school programmes in Chile exhibited a minimum level of quality, even though there are differences among types of programmes and also according to the geographical area where they were settled. Results are compared with findings from the European Child Care and Education (ECCE) study developed in Austria, Germany, Portugal and Spain and from the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project, developed in Britain. Cette étude se propose de évaluer la qualitédes différents programmes d'éducation et soin d'enfants au Chili, selon des standards internationaux. 120 centres ont été selectionnés au hasard, dans les deux départements du pays ou habite le 52% de la population. Cet article analyse les caractéristiques structurelles et du procès observes dans les classes, selon les résultats obtenus avec l'application de l'Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). Les différents types de programme on montré un niveau minimal de qualité même s'il y avait de différences significatives parmi les programmes et les départements. Les résultats sont compares avec l'étude European Child Care and Education (ECCE) développeé a le'Autriche, dans l'Allemagne, au Portugal et en Espagne et avec ceux projet Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE), développe a l'Angleterre. El propósito de este estudio fue la evaluación de la calidad de los diferentes programas de Educación y cuidado infantil existentes en Chile, aplicando criterios internacionales. La muestra incluyó 120 centros que representan los diferentes tipos de programas existentes en el país, seleccionados al azar, en las dos regiones, en las que habita el 52% de la población total. Este artículo analiza las características estructurales y del proceso observadas en las salas, de acuerdo a los resultados de la aplicación de la Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). Los distintos tipos de programas mostraron un nivel de calidad promedio correspondiente al rango minimo, aunque existen diferencias significativas entre ellos y también entre las dos regiones. Estos resultados fueron comparados con los hallazgos de los estudios-European Child Care and Education (ECCE), desarrollado en Austria, Alemania, Portugal y Espana y Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE), realizado en Inglaterra.