Effects of Temporary Classroom Transitions in Childcare on Children's Outcomes

临时课堂过渡对儿童保育对儿童结局的影响

• 批准号: 7258184
• 负责人: Vi-Nhuan Le
• 金额: $ 9.28万
• 依托单位: RAND CORPORATION
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-04-15 至 2009-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7258184
• 关键词: Accreditation; Caregivers; Caring; Characteristics; Child; Child Development; Condition; Continuity of Patient Care; Data Collection; Development; Drops; Fostering; Individual; Love; Mediating; Outcome; Parents; Play; Policies; Procedures; Provider; Quality of Care; Recommendation; Role; Secure; Time; Urination; Variant; base; cognitive function; day; experience; innovation; size; social; teacher; theories

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Child development theory suggests that young children need continuity in caregivers in order to feel secure and form attachments. Indeed, many studies have found that secure attachments serve as developmental antecedents for positive child outcomes. For these reasons, national childcare organizations endorse policies and practices that foster continuity of care and discourage such practices as temporarily moving individual children or teachers into other classrooms to meet ratio requirements. Professional recommendations against temporary classroom transitions are based on theoretical assumptions, as no empirical studies have examined the relationships between temporary transitions and children's outcomes. Our project aims to fill this void by examining (1) the teacher and child characteristics associated with temporary transitions; (2) the relationships between temporary transitions and children's social and cognitive functioning; and (3) the role quality of care plays in mediating those relationships. A unique aspect of this study will be our ability to track changes in quality of care resulting from transitions. When individual children or teachers are moved during the day, their departure from or arrival into a classroom changes the child-teacher ratios, group sizes, and composition of teacher characteristics for all associated classrooms. This necessitates tracking quality at the individual-child level. We used an innovative data collection procedure in which parents filled out sign-in/sign-out sheets at drop-off and pick-up, and staff completed the sheets when they moved classrooms, or when children were moved to another classroom. This will allow us to estimate the percentage of time each child spends with each teacher, and to compute an average child-teacher ratio and group size that is unique to each child. Our ability to capture variation in quality of experience at the individual child-level will allow us to better explore how these differences relate to children's development. The results of this study will provide guidance to practitioners by identifying the conditions under which temporary re-assignments are associated with positive or negative outcomes. We will answer such questions as whether transitions are necessarily associated with poorer social and cognitive functioning, or whether children who move from lower-quality classrooms to higher-quality classrooms can demonstrate positive outcomes, despite receiving care from different teachers. This will help inform sensible approaches to policies regarding classroom transitions.

描述（由申请人提供）：儿童发展理论表明，幼儿需要照顾者的连续性才能感到安全并形成依恋。事实上，许多研究发现，安全依恋是儿童积极成果的发展前提。出于这些原因，国家儿童保育组织赞同促进保育连续性的政策和做法，并阻止将个别儿童或教师暂时转移到其他教室以满足比例要求的做法。针对临时课堂过渡的专业建议基于理论假设，因为没有实证研究检验临时过渡与儿童结果之间的关系。我们的项目旨在通过检查（1）与临时过渡相关的教师和儿童特征来填补这一空白； (2) 暂时的转变与儿童的社会和认知功能之间的关系； (3) 护理质量在调解这些关系中发挥的作用。这项研究的一个独特之处是我们能够跟踪过渡带来的护理质量变化。当个别儿童或教师在白天移动时，他们离开或进入教室会改变所有相关教室的儿童与教师的比例、小组规模和教师特征的构成。这就需要在个体儿童层面上跟踪质量。我们采用了一种创新的数据收集程序，家长在接送孩子时填写签到/签退表，工作人员在搬动教室或孩子们被转移到另一个教室时填写这些表格。这将使我们能够估计每个孩子与每位老师相处的时间百分比，并计算每个孩子特有的平均孩子与老师的比例和小组规模。我们捕捉个体儿童层面体验质量差异的能力将使我们能够更好地探索这些差异与儿童发展的关系。这项研究的结果将通过确定临时重新分配与积极或消极结果相关的条件来为从业者提供指导。我们将回答这样的问题：过渡是否必然与较差的社交和认知功能有关，或者从质量较低的教室转到质量较高的教室的孩子是否可以表现出积极的成果，尽管接受了不同老师的照顾。这将有助于为有关课堂过渡的政策提供明智的方法。