Educational quality in preschool settings

Author(s):

Margrit Stamm

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 11, Towards Community Focused Schoool Development: Dimensions of Collaboration

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-30

16:45-18:15

Room:

JUR, HS 10

Chair:

Linda Mary Hargreaves

Contribution

In the last ten years, early childhood education and care has become an important theme in international educational discussions. In this regard, the notion that early childhood is a particularly effective period for sustainable learning and that preschool interventions should therefore be more strongly oriented to closing the social gap has been increasingly asserted. It is widely agreed that this goal can be achieved above all through the academic education and training of the personnel and the improvement of practical teaching and care work. Despite the importance of this theme, few investigations have been conducted into the educational quality of preschool settings. This is the case both from an international perspective, but particularly also for the German-speaking area. Although several studies on the general quality of the kindergarten or of preschool provision are available, there are barely any studies devoted to the question of profiles and qualitative differences of preschool learning environments, or to the link between structural and process-related features. The research project referred to here examined the quality of learning environments of four- and five-year-old children in the new Swiss school entry model of the so-called “basic level” [Basisstufe; system replacing kindergarten and first two years of primary school with three to five years of integrated schooling] with the aim of identifying factors associated with variations in quality. Central to the project were two questions: (1) Which profiles describe the quality of teaching work at the basic levels? (2) Do the profiles differ with regard to the teachers (age, qualification/certification, experience) as well as characteristics of the provision (number of children cared for, social background, mothers’ educational background)?

Method

The project was based on a data set of N = 88 teachers, who taught 102 children in 34 basic level classes. In addition, 102 mothers of these children were included. In total, three instruments were used: the observation instrument CLASS for measuring instructional quality and the social and emotional climate (cf. La Paro & Pianta 2000), and a short questionnaire for teachers (demographic features, further education and training, professional experience) and for parents (demographic features of the mothers and the children). These data formed the basis for an agglomerative cluster analysis following Ward, which brought to light four teaching profiles of the teachers. In order to determine the differences between the clusters as a whole, the post-hoc Tukey HSD procedure was then applied. In addition, the categorical demographic variables were evaluated.

Expected Outcomes

The profiles that were emphasised by means of a cluster analysis differ from one another. The 20.5% of Cluster 1 (“Best practice”) proved to be superior with regard to both the socio-emotional dimension and the instructional dimension. Located at the other end are the 12.5% of Cluster 4 (“Minimal quality”), which can be characterised as learning settings of minimal quality, manifested in low emotional and learning-oriented support. The great majority of the learning settings, i.e. 67%, were covered by Clusters 2 (“Relationship quality”) and 3 (“Quality of instruction”), which showed both qualitatively high and low partial profiles and can accordingly be characterised by a pronounced one-sidedness. Cluster 2 can be characterised by strengths in relationship quality and weaknesses in the quality of instruction Te profile of Cluster 3 is almost opposite to this, showing weaknesses in relationship quality while at the same time showing strengths in the quality of instruction.

References

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Author Information

Margrit Stamm

University Fribourg

Erziehungswissenschaften

Fribourg

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