Educators’ Use of Participation-Promoting Elements in Book Reading Situations with Toddlers and the Attitude of the Educational Professionals Toward Participation
Keywords:
Early childhood education, Participation, Book reading, Caregiver-child dialog, Teachers´ belief, Sustained shared thinking, In-service trainingAbstract
Pedagogical staff in daycare centers are responsible for providing children with comprehensive opportunities for participation, regardless of their age. The experience of self-determination and co-determination in children’s everyday affairs as well as their participation in cognitively stimulating participatory interactions are considered particularly beneficial for their development. However, research results on the frequency of individual elements of these interaction formats are largely lacking, especially for toddlers. Therefore, the study recorded the presence of individual elements of participation-promoting linguistic interactions in a reading situation for 72 professionals working with toddlers. The study further examined whether these correlate with the professionals’ attitudes toward participation. In 87.4 % of the reading situations, the educational professionals succeeded in showing epistemic markers as a significant element of cognitively stimulating and participation-promoting interactions. In contrast, professionals verbalized the mental states of others in only 29.9 % of the situations and their beliefs in only 2.3 % of the situations. The results also indicate that educational professionals tend not to agree with the pessimistic statements about participation. The study found a significant negative correlation between a pessimistic attitude toward participation and the frequency of interactions conducive to participation in addressing children’s issues and orientation. Overall, this study provides evidence of professionals’ use of cognitively stimulating elements that promote participation, such as the use of epistemic markers, the justification of speech acts, and the verbalization of inner states in the daily pedagogical work with children under 3 years of age. It also looks at the need for further professional development of ECEC staff.
References
König A, 2009, Interaction Processes Between Educators and Children: A Video Study from Everyday Kindergarten Life, Springer, Wiesbaden, 1–20.
Siraj-Blatchford I, Muttock S, Sylva K, et al., 2002, Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years, Research Report No. 356, Norwich, 1–20.
Hildebrandt F, Scheidt A, Hildebrandt A, et al., 2016, Sustained Shared Thinking as an Interaction Format and the Language Behavior of Children. Early Education, 5(2): 82–90.
Cusati Müller M, 2021, Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior of Children and Their Participation in Interactions. Journal of Developmental Psychology and Educational Psychology, 53(3–4): 105–115.
Hildebrandt F, Walter-Laager C, Flöter F, et al., 2021, Final Report on the BiKA Study, Federal Ministry for Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), Berlin, 1–20.
Lohse K, Hildebrandt A, Hildebrandt F, 2022, Hypotheses in Adult-child Interactions Stimulate Children’s Reasoning and Verbalizations. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 58: 254–263.
Tomasello M, 2014, A Natural History of Human Thought, Suhrkamp, Berlin, 1–20.
Hildebrandt F, Musholt C, 2020, Teaching Rationality – Sustained Shared Thinking as a Means for Learning to Navigate the Space of Reasons. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54(3): 582–599.
Taumoepeau M, Ruffman T, 2006, Mother and Infant Talk About Mental States Relates to Desire Language and Emotion Understanding. Child Development, 77(2): 465–481.
Harris PL, de Rosney M, Pons F, 2005, Language and Children’s Understanding of Mental States. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(2): 69–73.
Lohmann H, Tomasello M, 2003, Language and Social Understanding: Commentary on Nelson et al. Human Development, 46(1): 47–50.
Girolametto L, Weitzman E, Greenberg J, 2003, Training Day Care Staff to Facilitate Children’s Language. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 12(3): 299–311.
Kuhn D, 2008, Education for thinking, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1–20.
Cordes A, Radan J, Wirts C, 2019, Expert-child Dialogues in Free Play: Who Has the Say? Early Education, 8(3): 200–205.
Müller CM, Seiler WC, Simoni H, et al., 2019, Children’s Participation in Sustained Shared Thinking in Free Play: Influences of Gender and Age of Children. Early Education, 8(3): 153–165.
Wadepohl H, Mackowiak K, 2016, Relationship Design and its Importance for Supporting Children’s Learning Processes in Free Play. Early Education, 5(1): 22–30.
Hopf M, 2012, Sustained Shared Thinking in Early Science and Technology Learning, Waxman, Münster, 1–20.
Wildgruber A, Wertfein M, Wirts C, et al., 2016, Situational Differences in the Quality of Interaction Over the Course of Everyday Kindergarten Life. Early Education, 5(4): 206–213.
Slot PL, Leseman PPM, Verhagen J, et al., 2015, Associations Between Structural Quality Aspects and Process Quality in Dutch Early Childhood Education and Care Settings. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 33: 64–76.
Kluczniok K, Roßbach HG, 2014, Conceptions of Educational Quality for Kindergartens. Journal of Educational Science, 17(Suppl 6): 145–158.
Pajares MF, 1992, Teachers’ Beliefs and Educational Research: Cleaning Up a Messy Construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3): 307–332.
Fives H, Buehl MM, 2012, Spring Cleaning for the ‘Messy’ Construct of the Teacher’s Beliefs: What Are They? Which Have Been Examined? What Can They Tell Us? APA Educational Psychology Handbook: Vol. 2. Individual Differences and Cultural and Contextual Factors, APA, Washington, 471–499.
Fröhlich-Gildhoff K, Nentwig-Gesemann I, Pietsch S, 2011, Competence Orientation in the Qualification of Early Childhood Educators, WiFF Expertise, München, 19.
Tietze W, Meischner T, Gänsfuß R, et al., 1998, How Good Are Our Kindergartens? A Study of Pedagogical Quality in German Kindergartens. Journal of Pedagogy, 46(2000): 325–329.
Luthardt J, Bormann I, Hildebrandt F, 2021, Attitudes of Educational Professionals Towards Stimulating Interactions in Daycare Centers: Further Training Needs Discover with Cognitive-Affective Maps (CAMs). Early Education, 10: 151–160.
Pölzl-Stefanec E, Geißler C, 2020, Enabling Participatory Practice in crèches: Attitudes of the Educational Staff. Early Education, 9(1): 9–17.
Tietze W, Becker-Stoll F, Bensel J, et al., 2013, NUBBEK: National Inquiry into Early Childhood Education, Care and Upbringing, Das Netz, Berlin.
Klieme E, Hartig J, 2007, Competence Concepts in the Social Sciences and in Educational Discourse. Journal of Educational Science, 8(10): 11–29.
Altman DG, 1991, Practical Statistics for Medical Research. Chapman & Hall / CRC Texts in Statistical Science, Taylor & Francis Ltd, Abingdon, 1–624.
Landis JR, Koch GG, 1977, The Measurement of Observer Agreement for Categorical Data. Biometrics, 33(1): 159–174.
IBM Corp., 2011, SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 20.0, IBM, New York.
Hildebrandt F, Musholt K, 2018, Self-Education, Training or Dialogue: How do Children Get Into the “Space of Reasons”? Thinking with Children - Conversations in Everyday Daycare, Dohrmann Verlag, Berlin, 33–52.
Bonawitz E, Shafto P, Gweon H, et al., 2011, The Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction Limits Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery. Cognition, 120: 322–330.
Pianta RC, Howes C, Burchinal MR, et al., 2005, Features of Pre-Kindergarten Programs, Classrooms, and Teachers: Do They Predict Observed Classroom Quality and Child-Teacher Interactions? Applied Developmental Science, 9(3): 144–159.
Kluczniok K, Anders Y, Ebert S, 2011, Preschool Teachers’ Support Attitudes - Influences on the Design of Learning Opportunities in Kindergarten and the Child’s Development of Early Numerical Skills. Early Education, 13–21.
Bryant DM, Burchinal MR, Lau LB, et al., 1994, Family and Classroom Correlates of Head Start Children’s Developmental Outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 9(3–4): 289–309.
Nentwig-Gesemann I, Fröhlich-Gildhoff K, Harms H, et al., 2011, Professional Attitude – Identity of the Specialist for Working with Children in the First Three Years of Life, DJI, München.
Frazier BN, Gelman SA, Wellman HM, 2009, Preschoolers’ Search for Explanatory Information within Adult-Child Conversation. Child Development, 80: 1592–1611.
