Engaging young children: Lessons from research about quality in Early Childhood Education and Care
1. Engaging young children: Lessons from research about quality
in Early Childhood Education and Care
Webinar Launch, 27 March 2018
Andreas Schleicher - Director for Education and Skills, OECD
2. …AND GOVERNMENTS HAVE TAKEN ACTION TO
PROVIDE ACCESS AND RAISE QUALITY
ECEC MATTERS FOR CHILDREN’S
DEVELOPMENT…
3. The brain sensitivity of highly important developmental
areas peak in the first three years of a child’s life
Sources: Adapted from Council for Early Childhood Development, (2010), in Naudeau S. et al. (2011). OECD (2015), Starting Strong IV: Monitoring Quality in
Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
4. Rates of return to one Euro invested in educational interventions for
disadvantaged and well-off children at different stages of the life cycle
Source: Adapted from Cunha et al. (2006) in Wossmann (2008), Efficiency and equity of European education and training policies.
5. Early competencies appear to be linked with a range of
important outcomes later in life, in several domains
Sources: Shuey, E.
(2017), The Power and
Promise of Early
Learning, OECD Draft
Working Paper, Schoon,
I. et al. (2015), The
Impact of Early Life Skills
on Later Outcomes,
OECD Directorate for
Education and Skills,
Education Policy
Committee.
6. Universal access to at least one year of ECEC is now a reality in
most OECD countries (2014)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Ireland
Australia
France
Mexico
Germany
Netherlands
Luxembourg
UnitedKingdom
Denmark
Belgium
Switzerland
NewZealand
Israel
Norway
Spain
Iceland
Italy
Portugal
Japan
Austria
Latvia
Hungary
Sweden
OECDaverage
Korea
Chile
Brazil
Poland
Greece
UnitedStates
Slovenia
Estonia
CzechRepublic
RussianFederation
SlovakRepublic
Finland
Turkey
%
Enrolment rates for children under the age 3 Enrolment rates at age 3
Enrolment rates at age 4 Enrolment rates at age 5
Source: OECD (2017) Starting Strong 2017: Key OECD Indicators on Early Childhood Education and Care, OECD Publishing, Paris.
9. In light of budgetary constraints, policy makers require the
latest knowledge base to make the right choices
10. Structural
quality
Process
quality
CHILD
development
learning
and well-
being
Distal indicators of ECEC quality that
refer to available physical, human, and
material resources
e.g. child-staff ratios, staff qualifications
Proximal processes of children’s
everyday experience and involves the
social, emotional, physical and
instructional aspects of their
interactions in the classroom
e.g. staff-child interactions
Different ECEC quality dimensions need to be
considered
11. What can policy do?
Policy Review:
Quality beyond
Regulations
(Starting Strong VI)
Source: Adapted from OECD (2012). Starting Strong III. OECD Publishing, Paris.
Engaging young children:
Literature review &
Meta-analysis in 2017
Standards and
governance
Curriculum and
pedagogy
Engaging families and
communities Data and monitoring
Workforce development
and working conditions
12. Structural characteristics Association with
Staff-child
interactions
Child development
Workforce development and
working conditions
Higher pre-service qualifications Positive Evidence unclear
Participation in in-service
training/ professional
development
Positive Positive
Years of work experience Evidence unclear Missing
Standards, governance and
financing
Lower children-to-staff ratio Positive Evidence unclear
Smaller group size Evidence unclear Missing
Data and monitoring on quality
Accountability systems (QRIS) Positive/neutral Evidence unclear
15. Lessons learned
Workforce development and working conditions can:
Professional
development can
improve staff-child
interactions as well
as child literacy skills
Qualifications can
help prepare staff to
become emotionally,
educationally and
developmentally
supportive for
children
Staff qualifications
matter more for
settings for children
aged zero to 2
Important to include
ECEC-specific
content: child
development, team
collaboration and
leadership
Limited evidence for staff well-being, salaries, organisation climate, and inconsistent evidence for
years of work experience.
16. Country
Financial support
for training costs
Financial support
to cover partial
salary
Path to higher
qualification
Study
leave
Higher
salary/
promotion
British Columbia
(CAN)*
Child care X X X X
KG/ preschool X X X
Finland KG/ preschool X X X X
Manitoba (CAN)
Child care X X X X X
KG/ preschool X X X
Netherlands
Child care X X X X X
KG/ preschool X X X X X
Norway KG/ preschool X X
Poland
Child care X X X X
KG/ preschool X X X X
Slovenia KG/ preschool X X X X X
Spain
Child care X X X X
KG/ preschool X X X X
Sweden KG/ preschool X X X X
Countries offer different incentives for
professional development
Source: Adapted from OECD (2012). Starting Strong III. OECD Publishing, Paris.
18. Lessons learned
Governance and standards:
Lower staff-child
ratios can promote
positive staff-child
relations across all
age groups.
Group sizes
matter more for
staff interactions
with the youngest
children
Locating ECEC
centres within
schools can
influence staff’s
educational
activities
Classrooms with a
more balanced or
mixed group
composition can
ensure both equity
and quality in
ECEC.
Limited evidence for funding and intensity of daily services; also for licensing and
regulations in family daycare.
19. At the last year of ECEC, there are 14 children for
every staff, on average in OECD countries (2015)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Mexico
Brazil
Indonesia¹
China¹
Belgium
France
Netherlands
Japan
Italy
CzechRepublic
Korea
SlovakRepublic
Hungary
Greece¹
Luxembourg
Chile
UnitedStates
UnitedKingdom¹
Austria
Slovenia
Germany
Norway²
Sweden
Denmark¹
Australia¹
EU22average
OECDaverage
Pre-primary education (ISCED 02)
Early childhood educational development (ISCED 01)
Note: Staff include the teaching staff as well as teaching assistants. 1. Year of reference is 2014. 2. Including early childhood development (ISCED 01).
Sources: OECD (2017), Education at a Glance, Paris, OECD Publishing.
20. Data and monitoring can be a powerful lever to
encourage quality in early childhood
21. Lessons learned
Data and monitoring:
Quality monitoring
and rating
improvement
systems (QRIS) were
associated with higher-
quality staff-child
interactions, in
particular for centres.
Limited evidence for
linkages between QRIS
and staff-child
interactions in family
daycare settings
Positive feedback
loops between
monitoring systems and
staff practices may be
associated with gains in
children’s language
development
Important to ensure that
information on staff-
child interactions in
centres is used to
inform quality
improvements
Monitoring and quality rating systems provide only rough indicators of process
quality.
24. Policy Review: Quality
Beyond Regulations
International Early Learning
and Child Well-being Study
Next steps
TALIS Starting
Strong Survey
More fine-grained evidence on curriculum and monitoring
Understand system-level effects of structural features and
process quality.
Broader understanding of process quality.
Further studies of quality for the youngest
Child development examined more broadly
25. • Find out more about our work at
www.oecd.org/education/school/earlychildhoodeducationandca
re.htm
– All publications
– Details about our projects
• Email: Andreas.Schleicher@OECD.org
• Twitter: SchleicherOECD
• Wechat: AndreasSchleicher
Thank you for your attention
Notas do Editor
Research findings have consistently shown that ECEC has significant and multidimensional benefits for children and for society.
The effects of ECEC are long-lasting and can determine children’s D, L and WB for the rest of their scholar and professional path.
Research in neurosciences has shown that the brain sensitivity of highly important developmental areas, such as emotional control, social skills, language and numeracy, peak in the first three years of a child’s life. This means that the first years of a child’s life represent a pivotal “development window”.
ECEC provides a unique opportunity to interact with brain plasticity in these areas. If we miss this window, we may miss it forever
And the returns of ECEC to society are particularly high for disadvantaged children who don’t have a stimulating environment at home and in their direct communities
Both series show a similar pattern: the rate of return decreases as age increases. However, in the first stages of life, the rates of returns are much higher for interventions addressed to disadvantaged children than to well-off children.
This illustrates the inefficiency of remedial interventions when foundations are missing, as discussed above.
The first years are important for the development of skills as they lay the foundations for future skill development (OECD, 2015a and 2015b).
Research findings have consistently shown that ECEC has significant and multidimensional benefits for children and for society.
The effects of ECEC are long-lasting and can determine children’s D, L and WB for the rest of their scholar and professional path.
Policy makers are increasingly recognising what is at stake. Access to ECEC is on the rise in all countries, partly because of increased public spending to extend legal entitlements to a place in ECEC, as well as efforts to ensure free access, at least for some ages and selected population groups.
High enrolment rates are also observed for lower age groups. On average, now more than 3 out of 4 children participate in early childhood education and care at age 3 across the OECD (OECD, 2017b).
On average across OECD countries, around one third of children under the age of 3 were enrolled in formal childcare in 2014. This percentage increased by over eight percentage points between 2005 and 2014.
However, enrolment rates and intensity of participation at these ages vary significantly across countries. For instance, ECEC settings in some countries, such as Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia and Poland, provide long hours per week to a small proportion of children under the age of 3. By contrast, fewer hours per week are provided to an above-average proportion of children under the age of 3 in a small group of other countries
Our PISA comparisons show that children with greater ECEC exposure show much better schooling outcomes at age 15.
In specific, students who had attended pre-primary education for more than one year outperformed the rest, in many countries by more than one school year, even when taking account of the student's socio-economic background
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Science test looks at students ability to think as scientist, use hypothesis making.
The percentage of 15-year-old students who attended early childhood education (ISCED 0) for less than two years are added into brackets next to the country's name.
The children who need it the most are less likely to have access to ECEC (Eurydice Network, 2009[23]; OECD, 2017a[10]) (see Figure 1.3).
Also children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds have a higher chance of attending lower quality settings
Countries need to make difficult spending choices:
Governments cannot afford high salaries, high qualifications, continuous professional development, small groups, high ratios, extensive monitoring systems etc. at the same time. What is the priority?
Is it more important to raise qualification levels of staff or decrease group size with lower levels of training?
What to do in countries that still face lack of access issues while also facing quality issues, when funding is limited?
This report provides a first stock taking of research findings to address those matters, as part of a four-year review project on quality beyond regulations in ECEC.
Different ECEC quality dimensions need to be considered
Structural factors, which are the more distal indicators of ECEC quality, are often the aspects of the ECEC system that have traditionally been more easy to regulate.
They refer to available physical, human, and material resources, such as staff-to-child ratio, group size and staff training/education
However, a growing body of evidence shows that process quality, which refer to the proximal processes of children’s everyday experience and the social, emotional, physical and instructional aspects of their interactions in the classroom, have actually been shown to be the primary driver of children’s development in ECEC.
Within these, staff-child interactions are a central dimension of process quality
To expand the knowledge base on this topic, the OECD commissioned a cross-national literature review and meta-analysis of the relationship between structure and process quality in early childhood education and care and links of quality to child development and early learning, both conducted in 2017
So in light of these two dimensions of quality, what can policy makers do? How are the dimensions of quality that matter the most for children related to known policy levers? How can policy makers assure a more efficient use of resources?
Results in this report are organised into three thematic policy levers that build on the Starting Strong III Quality Toolbox:
1. Quality standards and governance
E.g. minimum standards (e.g. staff-child ratios, group sizes,); public/private financing;
2. Workforce development, and working conditions
Qualifications and initial education; professional development of staff; training to work in different environments; working conditions
3. Data and monitoring on quality
Limited to Quality rating and assessment systems
However, this report is part of initial desk-based research
for a new OECD ECEC Policy Review looking into "quality beyond regulations", in particular, "process quality“
In this broader project, we will also examine two additional policy levers:
4. Curriculum and Pedagogy
Curriculum frameworks/ learning standards; pedagogical guidelines; competencies/dispositions covered therein; pedagogical continuity; schoolification etc – and how they relate to curriculum implementation, children’s interactions with staff, peers and materials
4. Family and community engagement
Legal entitlements and obligations; information systems for parents; parent involvement; developmental continuity during transitions, etc. – and linkages to staff-parent and child community interactions
This table summarises the indicators for which a considerable number of studies are available, with ample geographic representation, and combined analysis from the literature review and meta-analysis, where available.
First and foremost, we found workforce development indicators to be the most powerful predictors of well-being and learning environments, and in specific staff should be well-trained to encourage children’s development,
The report also suggests that policy makers can leverage structural regulations to encourage high-quality staff-child interactions. A few common structural quality indicators, such as
child-to-staff ratios,
pre-service qualifications,
quality monitoring and rating improvement systems all influence process quality
The evidence is less clear for group sizes and the years of work experience of staff.
We will now look into some of these indicators in detail.
E.g. the meta-analysis demonstrated that the quality of staff-child interactions was significantly higher in groups with a lower number of children per ECEC staff. This was true for studies looking at the overall interactions between ECEC staff and the group, or at a combined average of the interactions between the ECEC staff and a few specific children in the play- or classroom. It is also important to note that in our meta-analysis, the studies summarized referred only to the interactions between the lead teacher and the children, and not all adults in the play- or classroom.
Starting with our Workforce development and working conditions domain, this report first confirms what a powerful predictor of children’s development and learning process quality is .
Across studies, countries, age-groups and types of settings, in ECEC settings with more positive staff-child interactions, children have higher levels of emerging literacy and numeracy skills
In this plot you can see consistent evidence from Germany, the US and Portugal, which are quite different policy systems
This association was true for the two age groups (0 to 2 and 3 to 5) and the two types of settings (centres and family daycare)
Associations between staff-child interactions and children’s development and learning did not differ significantly for children from predominantly disadvantaged backgrounds, compared to a more mixed or balanced group of children.
---
the majority of the studies is to the right of this line, this means effects in a positive direction. Only a few studies found no relationship – they are on top of or over zero.
Professional development or in-service training:
can improve staff-child interactions as well as child development and learning outcomes, especially in literacy skills for all groups of children
Higher pre-service qualifications mean that staff are more emotionally, educationally and developmentally supportive of children.
This is stronger for the youngest children.
In both cases, professional development and qualifications, content matters. In specific, content focused on child development how to collaborate in a team, issues of leadership, are linked to better quality or outcomes
Preliminary evidence indicates that centres and provisions where staff reported higher well-being, receive higher salaries and have more team collaboration provided higher process quality, in centres for 3- to 6-year-olds and for under the age of 3. For the staff’s years of work experience, the findings appeared to be inconsistent for all types of centres and provisions.
Given the strong evidence for professional development, countries can consider different systems of incentive for staff to participate in training. Looking at a subsample of countries in the scope of Starting Strong III, we can see there is great diversity across countries in the forms of support offered to cover salaries during training, or in considerations for promotion based on training.
Governance and standards are among the most commonly used regulations by policymakers for improving quality. They are also the most commonly studied.
Regulations such as Ratios, group sizes, funding structure of the organisation (public vs. private) or physical location of the centre (in a school or in a daycare centre) affect the working conditions for staff, and therefore are assumed to influence the relationships between staff and children.
Lower staff-child ratios themselves alone will not guarantee better child development. But they are likely to promote positive staff-child relations across all age groups.
Group sizes matter for staff interactions, but more for interactions with children 0 to 2, than with 3-5 year olds.
The report highlights that it may be best not to assume a one-to-one benefit of investment in these regulations (ratios and group size), as the benefit of the investment may increase up to a certain level, achieve a maximum, and beyond that be a waste of resources. Moreover, decreasing the size of a small group may have different effects from decreasing the size of a large group.
The report also indicates that we should avoid the risk of separate class- or playrooms for disadvantaged, immigrant or bilingual children, given that this seemed to be associated with lower quality staff-child interactions, as well as lower language and literacy skills
Based on the existing evidence from the schooling sector, as well as developmental and educational theory highlighting the importance of individualised pedagogy, particularly for the youngest children, many countries have implemented policies to reduce group size in early childhood development programmes (ISCED 01), and a trend is observed of smaller child-staff ratios in OECD countries in ISCED 01, compared to pre-primary education (ISCED 02)
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In this chart, staff include the teaching staff as well as teaching assistants
Data and monitoring can help establish facts, trends and evidence about whether children have equitable access to high-quality ECEC
Monitoring is the process of systematically tracking aspects of: ECEC services, staff, child development, curriculum implementation
Monitoring can help:
inform planning,
contribute to more efficient resource allocation
increase cost-effectiveness.
Quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) were found to be associated with:
higher levels of staff-child interactions in centres for all age groups in the US.
the linkage between QRIS and staff-child interactions in family daycare is less clear
In QRIS, positive feedback loops between monitoring systems and staff practices may be associated with gains in children’s language development
A key target of policy efforts might thus be to ensure that information on staff-child interactions in centres is collected not simply for purposes of accountability, but used to inform quality improvements.
Two main purposes can be found in countries: accountability and compliance as well as quality improvements vs. learning processes
Associated with different, but overlapping tools and approaches:
Inspections e.g. safety and hygene vs. staff practices etc.
Self-evaluations feed into inspections, but especially seek to foster quality : Self-reported surveys, self-reflection reports or journals, and checklists are often used (by 12/19) A little less than half use portfolios (8/19)
This is also reflected in who assesses and how often this is done
Broadly speaking, there is a trend that accountability and compliance oriented monitoring is more often external and of low frequency, e.g. every 1-3 years -- and more often if problems arise
Internal, often less formal monitoring is more typically associated with the goal of quality imprveoment and learning processes and may take place more frequenctly
This is not a necessity: there are successful examples of external monitoring (e.g. coaching-type, cf. New Jersey, Berlin, Better Start in ireland) that successfully targets quality improvements. Key: staff need to perceive it as support rather than threat.
Lastly, in line with the different tools we’ve discussed there is tendency that service quality monitoring is more compliance oriented whereas staff and children are moniotred more with the objective of quality improvements. One again, this is not ideal, and there is increasing awareness that monitoring service quality should facilitate quality improvements rather than only identifying black sheep.
Next, I will talk a bit more about monitoring staff quality, which I have not discussed in detail this morning, but which is pivotal for fostering child development.
this report highlights several interesting and necessary avenues for future research. These are in our line of sight for the next steps of OECD work in early childhood education and care.
We need:
More fine-grained evidence on curriculum and monitoring.
More evidence is necessary to understand the relationship of certain structural features, and their combined effects, on process quality.
Evidence is also lacking for a complete comprehension of how structural characteristics relate to child experiences with their peers in particular, as well as the interactions staff establish with other staff, the children’s parents/guardians and the broader community.
Finally, further studies of ECEC quality for infants and toddlers are necessary
There is also a visible need to examine domains, such as well-being, self-regulation, and other critical skills, in the scope of child developmental aspects included in studies of ECEC quality.
Our ongoing and future work is aimed at addressing some of these gaps.
The Policy Review on Quality Beyond Regulations (Starting Strong VI) aims to influence how to interpret quality dimensions, in particular, quality beyond regulations.
The TALIS Starting Strong Survey (3S), is the first international survey of ECEC staff and the quality of the learning and well-being environment.
Both of these studies assume a wide scope of ages from 0 to 6.
The International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study is an international survey that assesses children at approximately 5 years of age.