In what ways can adult-child pedagogical interactions at home and preschool combine to shape the development of preschoolers’ verbal reasoning?

Hall, James and Eddy, Chloe Georgia (2024) In what ways can adult-child pedagogical interactions at home and preschool combine to shape the development of preschoolers’ verbal reasoning? International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI) 37th Annual Conference., Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. 09 - 12 Jan 2024.

Abstract

Problem: Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy, practice, and research all emphasise the importance of adult-child pedagogical interactions at home and in ECEC settings for children’s development. However, separate bodies of knowledge have emerged concerning these interactions at home and in ECEC settings. Ongoing development of inductive statistical methods offer a means of bridging these bodies of knowledge. These methods provide a practical and efficient means of understanding how interactions in both locations work together to shape development. Thus, the use of these methods has the potential to yield new ECEC insights, innovations, and practice.

Research question: in what ways can adult-child pedagogical interactions in the home and preschool combine to shape the development of pre-schoolers’ verbal reasoning?

Context: advancement of contemporary knowledge that informs ECEC policy and practice.

Methods: secondary statistical analysis of a nationally representative dataset using a contemporary inductive statistical method: Mixture Regression Modelling.

Data Sources/evidence: data from the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) study: 2,857 children and families using 141 ECEC settings across England from ages 3 (entry to preschool) to 4 years (exit from preschool).

Results: four distinct groups were identified when considering the contextualised associations between adult-child pedagogical interactions at home and preschool and the development of verbal reasoning from 3 to 4 years of age.

Confirming previous EPPE research, adult-child pedagogical interactions in the home mattered for all – particularly how frequently a child was read to – and irrespective of a child’s verbal reasoning at 3 years or the development of this reasoning to age 4 years.

Extending the previous EPPE findings, the four groups also differed from each other in how verbal reasoning developed from 3-4 years and how this development was related to adult-child pedagogical interactions in homes and preschools. Three - inductive - findings stood out:



First, adult-child pedagogical interactions in ECEC settings were found to matter more when there were less frequent interactions in the home, and when interactions in preschool were higher in quality. This suggests possible preschool-origin boosts to equity in pre-schoolers’ development of verbal reasoning.

Second, that adult-child pedagogical interactions in preschool concerning ‘Language reasoning’ and ‘Science and the environment’ may have a prominent role in this equity boost.

Third, that family income was only weakly related to adult-child pedagogical interactions: Both richer and poorer families could experience more/less frequent pedagogical interactions in the home and higher/lower quality of pedagogical interactions in preschool. Thus the above equity effects matter for more children.

Educational importance of this research for theory, practice, and policy: Findings from EPPE have shaped ECEC policy, practice, and research for two decades. Therefore new EPPE findings matter -- especially because the EPPE data may be more comparable to conditions in England now versus 6-7 years ago. The ongoing development of inductive statistical methods aids the identification of conditions under which ECEC can facilitate equity in child development.

Connection to the conference theme: this paper illustrates how contemporary inductive statistical methods can help researchers: innovate in education, generate new insights/inquiries, and inform professional learning.

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Contributors

Author: James Hall

Author: Chloe Georgia Eddy

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