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，幼儿需要在护理人员中的连续性才能感到安全并形成依恋。实际上，许多研究发现，安全的依恋是积极儿童结果的发育前因。由于这些原因，国家育儿组织认可的政策和实践促进了护理的连续性，并劝阻诸如将单个孩子或教师临时迁移到其他教室以满足比率要求之类的实践。针对临时课堂过渡的专业建议是基于理论假设的，因为没有经验研究研究了临时过渡与儿童成果之间的关系。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）临时过渡与儿童的社会和认知功能之间的关系； （3）护理在调解这些关系中的作用质量。这项研究的一个独特方面将是我们能够跟踪过渡带来的护理质量变化的能力。当单个孩子或老师在白天移动时，他们从或到达教室时会改变儿童教师比例，小组人数和所有相关教室的教师特征的组成。这需要在个人孩子级别跟踪质量。我们使用了一个创新的数据收集程序，其中父母在下车和接送时填写了登录/登录表，工作人员在搬到教室时或将孩子搬到另一个教室时完成了床单。这将使我们能够估计每个孩子与每个老师花费的时间的百分比，并计算每个孩子独有的托儿所比例和小组人数。我们捕捉单个儿童级经验质量变化的能力将使我们能够更好地探索这些差异与儿童的成长之间的关系。这项研究的结果将通过确定临时重新分配与正面或负面结果相关的条件来为从业人员提供指导。我们将回答这样的问题，例如过渡是否必须与较差的社会和认知功能相关，或者从低品质的教室转移到高质量的教室的孩子是否可以表现出积极的成果，尽管接受了不同的老师的护理。这将有助于为有关课堂过渡的政策提供明智的方法。