Pre-schoolers’ development during the COVID-19 shutdowns – a mixed-methods secondary analysis

德国的托儿所有一项法律的任务，即支持儿童获得基本的学校技能和能力，为即将过渡到小学做准备。研究强调了这一重要任务，并表明，幼儿教育对于学龄前儿童从幼儿园过渡到小学的基本学校技能（如语言和数学）、社会情感和运动发展至关重要。基本的学校技能以及社会情感和运动发展反过来预测未来的学校成绩和学校的成功。然而，由于COVID-19疫情，德国的幼儿机构于二零二零年三月十六日至五月二十八日及于二零二零年十二月十六日至二零二一年三月一日关闭（由联邦州作出决定）。所提交的二次分析申请利用了从关闭时起的一个实际教学项目的现有数据，该项目旨在为学龄前儿童在过渡前的最后一个幼儿园和入学第一年提供教育支持。重点项目的第一个子目标是对现有的定量（来自对N=57名学前儿童的标准化IDS-2前后状态诊断）和定性访谈数据进行二次分析，这些数据涉及学前儿童的基本学校技能、运动技能和社交情感能力的发展，以及他们自己、父母和专业人士在COVID-19关闭前后的观点。初步调查结果强调了托儿所在幼儿教育和儿童发展方面支持向学校过渡的特殊作用。到目前为止，还缺乏对学龄前儿童在COVID-19关闭过程中的整体教育、运动和社交情感发展以及他们如何应对向小学过渡的深入了解。虽然许多COVID-19研究项目利用回顾性调查，但所提出的二次分析将利用学前儿童的标准化测试前和测试后数据以及定性访谈数据。定性和定量数据一起作为一个密集和独特的数据集，似乎有希望解决以下问题：学龄前儿童的基本学校技能、运动技能和社会情感能力如何，儿童、（幼儿）教师和家长如何经历幼儿教育机构的关闭？总体目标是准备并提交两份双盲同行评审出版物和至少两份会议报告。

Nurseries in Germany have a legal mandate to support children’s acquisition of basic school skills and competences in preparation for the upcoming transition to primary school. Research underlines this important mandate and shows that early childhood education is crucial to prepare pre-schoolers for transition from nursery to primary school with respect to basic school skills (e.g. language and mathematics), social-emotional and motoric development. Basic school skills as well as social-emotional and motoric development in turn predict future school achievements and school success. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic however, nursery institutions in Germany were shut down for most pre-schoolers from 16th March to 28th May 2020 and again from 16th December 2020 to 1st March 2021 (decisions were made by the federal states). The presented application for a secondary analysis draws on existing data from a practical pedagogical project from the time of the shutdown designed to provide pre-schoolers with educational support during their final nursery year prior to transition and during their first year of school. The first sub-goal of the focus project is to conduct a secondary analysis of existing quantitative (from standardised IDS-2 pre-post-post status diagnostic of N=57 pre-school children) and qualitative interview data on the development of pre-schoolers’ basic school skills, motor skills and social-emotional competences and their own, their parents’ as well as professionals’ perspectives before and after the COVID-19 shutdown. Preliminary findings stress the particular role of nurseries in supporting the transition to school with regard to early childhood education and childhood development. Insights into pre-schoolers’ overall educational, motoric and social-emotional development over the course of the COVID-19 shutdowns and how they coped with the transition into primary school are lacking so far. While many COVID-19 research projects draw on retrospective surveys, the presented secondary analysis will draw on standardised pre- and post-test data from pre-schoolers as well as qualitative interview data. Together, the qualitative and quantitative data serve as a dense and unique data set that seems promising with regard to the questions on how basic school skills, motor skills and the social-emotional competences of pre-schoolers and how children, (nursery) teachers and parents experienced the shutdown of early childhood education institutions? The overall goal is to prepare and submit two double-blind peer review publications and a minimum of two conference presentations.