Colloquium Perspectives on the Effectiveness of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Organizer: Groningen Institute for Educational Research (GION) - University of Groningen http://www.rug.nl/research/groningen-institute-for-educational-research/

Colloquium Perspectives on the Effectiveness of

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Special guest: Catherine E. Snow (Harvard Graduate School of Education)

Date: April 9, 2014 Time: 14:30 to 17:30 hours

Place: Senaatskamer (Academy Building, University of Groningen) Broerstraat 5, 9712 CP Groningen

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The notion that ECEC can make a difference for child development finds nowadays little opposition. How- ever, the answer to questions such as what is good quality in ECEC? or what works in ECEC and for what children? can be followed by heated discussions. In this colloquium we want to contribute to these discus- sions by reflecting on empirical evidence from studies with diverse theoretical and methodological stand- points, and situated in different contexts.

Three presentations of empirical evidence (see ab- stracts on next page) will be followed by an integra- tive discussion guided by professor Catherine E. Snow, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

14.30 – 14.45 Opening and context Marjolein Deunk

University of Groningen, GION

14.45 – 15.05 Quality of Dutch ECEC: Findings from the Pre-COOL study

Paul Leseman, Pauline Slot, Hanna Mulder & Josje Verhagen

Utrecht University, Pedagogical & Educational Sciences

15.05 – 15.25 Teacher-child interactions as learning opportunities in ECEC classrooms Mayra Mascareño

University of Groningen, GION

15.25 – 15.45 Measuring the effectiveness of ECEC interventions: Fundamental considerations Marijn van Dijk

University of Groningen, Developmental Psychology

15.45 – 16.00 Summary and framing of the discussion Marjolein Deunk

16.00 – 16.30 Integrative discussion Catherine E. Snow

Harvard Graduate School of Education

16.30 – 16.45 Plenary discussion and questions 16.45 – 17.30 Closing drinks

PROGRAM

ATTENDANCE

Attendance is free of charge, but spaces are limited.

For that reason we kindly request you to confirm your presence latest on Wednesday April 2, by sending an email to Sonja Abels:

DIRECTIONS

Instructions to access the Academy Building can be found in the following link:

http://www.rug.nl/staff/location/1111

RELATED EVENT

Mayra Mascareño will be defending her dissertation titled Learning Opportunities in Kindergarten Class- rooms in a public ceremony on April 10, at 16:15 hours, at the Academy Building of the University of Groningen. For more information and/or a copy of the book, please contact her directly (

rug.nl

)

Organizer: Groningen Institute for Educational Research (GION) - University of Groningen http://www.rug.nl/research/groningen-institute-for-educational-research/

ABSTRACTS OF THE PRESENTATIONS

Colloquium Perspectives on the Effectiveness of

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)

Special guest: Catherine E. Snow (Harvard Graduate School of Education)

Quality of Dutch ECEC:

Findings from the Pre-COOL study Paul Leseman, Pauline Slot, Hanna Mulder & Josje Verhagen

Utrecht University

Pre-COOL is a national cohort study involving almost 2000 children attending 285 class- rooms in day care centers and preschools. The study is conducted by a consortium of the Kohnstamm Institute, the Institute for Applied Social Sciences, and the Department of Edu- cation of Utrecht University. Children are followed from age two until age 5. Child assess- ments concern language, executive functions, social competence and classroom behavior.

Classroom quality was assessed using the observation system CLASS Toddler, along with teacher reports on structural quality characteristics and the implemented curriculum. The presentation will focus on emotional and instructional process quality, the relationships between process quality, curriculum and structural quality, and the first indications of ef- fects of quality and curriculum on child outcomes, in particular vocabulary and selective attention.

Teacher-child interactions as learning opportunities in ECEC classrooms Mayra Mascareño University of Groningen

Teacher-child interactions can be considered one of the most important determinants of the quality of learning opportunities in the educational context. In this presentation we focus on evidence from a large-scale randomized project (Un Buen Comienzo, A Good Start) aimed at providing good-quality early childhood education to children from low socioeconomic backgrounds in Santiago, Chile. We explored the relationship between teacher-child in- teractions and child developmental outcomes (language, literacy, and socioemotional and cognitive competence) by means of a combination of analytical approaches. From micro- analytic explorations we will discuss evidence about the quality of verbal interaction at a moment-to-moment level, and its relationship to child language and literacy outcomes.

From a broader-scale analysis we will discuss evidence about differential effects of class- room quality on children with diverse developmental profiles. Issues such as fine-tuning and goodness of fit between the child characteristics and the classroom environment will be central to this presentation.

Measuring the effectiveness of ECEC interventions:

Fundamental considerations Marijn van Dijk University of Groningen

Though most researchers agree that interventions take place in a complex system of many mutually influencing factors, the study of the effectiveness often has an implicit ‘mechanis- tic’ perspective. Effectiveness is mostly conceived in terms of (statistically significant) group effects and at isolating factors that influence this effect. The underlying model is that of dependent and independent variables.

In our contribution we will address several fundamental questions about measuring effec- tiveness of interventions in early education. Our assumption is that these interventions are in fact processes of induced change, which operate at the level of behaviors and concerns as emergent properties in the interaction between child and educators.

We will ask the following questions: 1) How can group effects be generalized to individual cases --and vice versa-- when change processes are in fact highly idiosyncratic? 2) Which research designs are required when we know that a changing system is characterized by a high degree of intra-individual variability? 3) Which ‘outcome’ variables should be chosen in order to reflect the transactional and emergent character of the changes that are expected to occur as a result of the intervention?