| Early Education | | Early education, including preschool, prekindergarten, and programs such as Head Start, is a robust area of education research. In recent years, AERA’s journals - through research articles, essays, and book reviews and responses - have examined many aspects of the early education, including: The following compendium of open-access articles are inclusive of all substantive AERA journal content regarding early education published since 2004. This page will be updated as new articles are published.
Ji-Young Choi, Laura C. Betancur, Heather L. Rouse
May 2024
Researchers found that over half of the children attending HS additionally participated in Pre-K. Such dual enrollment, which reflects more daily hours of center-based early care and education, predicted higher teacher-reported school readiness skills, including cognitive, language, literacy, math, physical, and social-emotional skills.
Qing Zhang, Jade Marcus Jenkins
May 2024
Researchers found that competition was associated with higher quality ratings and a higher probability to achieve a five-star rating—the highest tier in the QRIS.
Anna D. Johnson, Anne Partika, Anne Martin, Ian Lyons, Sherri Castle, Deborah A. Phillips, The Tulsa SEED Study Team
February 2024
Researchers found that both school-based pre-K and Head Start attenders outperformed preschool nonattenders on numeracy in third grade.
Wendy Wei
February 2024
Researchers found that the vast majority of children (85%) had consistently low absenteeism, and only a small percentage of children (1%) demonstrated consistently high absenteeism.
Christina Weiland, Rebecca Unterman, Susan Dynarski, Rachel Abenavoli, Howard Bloom, Breno Braga, Anne-Marie Faria, Erica Greenberg, Brian A. Jacob, Jane Arnold Lincove, Karen Manship, Meghan McCormick, Luke Miratrix, Tomás E. Monarrez, Pamela Morris-Perez, Anna Shapiro, Lindsay Weixler
February 2024
Researchers identified six challenges that need to be carefully considered in this next context: (a) available baseline covariates that may not be very rich; (b) limited data on the counterfactual; (c) limited and inconsistent outcome data; (d) weakened internal validity due to attrition; (e) constrained external validity due to who competes for oversubscribed programs; and (f) difficulties answering site-level questions with child-level randomization.
Abbie Cahoon, Carolina Jiménez Lira, Nancy Estévez Pérez, Elia Veronica Benavides Pando, Yanet Campver García, Daniela Susana Paz García, Victoria Simms
November 2023
Researchers found that home-based interventions had minimal effect on literacy and mathematical outcomes for preschoolers.
Douglas D. Ready, Jeanne L. Reid
August 2023
Researchers found that a majority of PKA segregation lies within local communities, and that areas with increased options and greater racial/ethnic diversity exhibit the most extreme segregation.
Elizabeth Burke Hadley, Siyu Liu, Eunsook Kim, Meaghan McKenna
June 2023
Researchers found that COVID-19 closures did not have significant negative impacts on pre-K children’s language and literacy skills at kindergarten entry.
Emily Machado, Maggie R. Beneke, Jordan Taitingfong
March 2023
Researchers found that collaborative, creative, and pedagogical writing supported early childhood teachers in envisioning, enacting, and leading liberatory literacy pedagogies within and beyond their schools.
William T. Gormley, Jr., Sara Amadon, Katherine Magnuson, Amy Claessens, Douglas Hummel-Price
January 2023
Researchers found that college enrollment was 12 percentage points higher for Tulsa pre-K alumni compared with former students who did not attend Tulsa pre-K or Head Start.
Laura Bellows, Daphna Bassok, Anna J. Markowitz
November 2022
Researchers found that turnover is particularly high among childcare teachers (compared to teachers at Head Start or school-based pre-kindergarten), teachers of toddlers, and teachers new to their sites.
Lauren M. Cycyk, Stephanie De Anda, Katrina L. Ramsey, Bruce S. Sheppard, Katharine Zuckerman
October 2022
Researchers found that attending to children’s intersecting ethnicity and language backgrounds in referral, evaluation, and placement add nuance to examinations of disproportionality.
Joy Lorenzo Kennedy, Claire G. Christensen, Tiffany Salone Maxon, Sarah Nixon Gerard, Elisa B. Garcia, Janna F. Kook, Naomi Hupert, Phil Vahey, Shelley Pasnik
July 2022
Researchers examined whether free educational videos and digital games supported children’s ability to use informational text to answer real-world questions.
Walter A. Herring, Daphna Bassok, Anita S. McGinty, Luke C. Miller, James H. Wyckoff
, April 2022
Researchers found significant racial and socioeconomic differences in the likelihood that a child will be proficient on their third-grade reading assessment.
Mariana Souto-Manning, Abby C. Emerson, Gina Marcel, Ayesha Rabadi-Raol, Adrielle Turner
, April 2022
This review of literature sheds light on the problems, obstacles, promises, and possibilities of democratizing creative educational experiences in racially just ways across settings, thereby having significant implications internationally.
Katherine M. Zinsser, H. Callie Silver, Elyse R. Shenberger, Velisha Jackson
, January 2022
Results show an accelerating pace of inquiry that attends to multiple levels of the ecological system across diverse settings.
Carrie E. Markovitz, Marc C. Hernandez, E. C. Hedberg, Heidi W. Whitmore
, December 2021
Researchers found that kindergarten and first-grade students who received a single semester of Reading Corps tutoring achieved significantly higher literacy assessment scores, and demonstrated meaningful and significant effects after a full-school year of the intervention for second- and third-grade students.
Emily C. Hanno
, November 2021
Results indicated that emotional support and classroom organization practices improved immediately after any coaching cycle, whereas others, like instructional support and literacy focus practices, only changed after cycles focused on those specific practices.
Emily C. Hanno, Kathryn E. Gonzalez, Stephanie M. Jones, Nonie K. Lesaux
September 2021
Researchers found that group size and child-to-adult ratio were most consistently linked to children’s experiences but educator education, experience, and curriculum usage were largely unrelated.
Georgine M. Pion, Mark W. Lipsey
September 2021
Researchers found that a regression-discontinuity design with a statewide probability sample of 155 TN-VPK classrooms and 5,189 children participating across two pre-K cohorts found positive effects at kindergarten entry with the largest effects for literacy skills and the smallest for language skills.
Mimi Engel, Robin Jacob, Amy Claessens, Anna Erickson
, August 2021
Researchers found that kindergartners spend the majority of instructional time on reading and mathematics, with little time devoted to other subjects.
Scott Latham, Sean P. Corcoran, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Jennifer L. Jennings
, July 2021
Researchers found the average quality of public pre-K providers is high. However, they identified large disparities in the average quality of providers experienced by Black and White students, which is partially explained by differential proximity to higher quality providers.
Julie Sarama, Douglas H. Clements, Arthur J. Baroody, Traci S. Kutaka, Pavel Chernyavskiy, Jackie Shi, Menglong Cong
, June 2021
Researchers found that instruction following LTs (i.e., providing instruction just beyond a child’s present level of thinking, progressing through the levels in order as the child advances) may promote more learning than an equivalent amount of instruction using the same activities but that are not theoretically sequenced.
Daphna Bassok, Preston Magouirk, Anna J. Markowitz
May 2021
Researchers found systemwide quality and improvement trends over a period of targeted investment in quality improvement statewide using 4 years of data from a mandatory, statewide QRIS covering subsidized child care, Head Start, and state prekindergarten.
Lora Cohen-Vogel, Michael Little, Wonkyung Jang, Margaret Burchinal, Mary Bratsch-Hines
, April 2021
Researchers found that 37% of the language, literacy, and math content covered in kindergarten is redundant with content covered in pre-K.
James Kim, Joshua Gilbert, Qun Yu, Charles Gale
April 2021
Researchers found that the positive overall effect masks substantial variability in app effectiveness, as meta-regression analyses revealed three significant moderators of treatment effects.
Susanne Garvis, Sivanes Phillipson, Shane N. Phillipson
, April 2021
Researchers found that Australian research in ECEC is very dissimilar to research published internationally, especially in its reliance on qualitative paradigms and a focus on the educators (principals, teachers, and teacher aides).
Ilana M. Umansky, Hanna Dumont
March 2021
Researchers found that EL classification results in lower teacher perceptions.
Margaret R. Beneke
, February 2021
This essay proposes the need for intersectional, multiplane qualitative data generation in studying young children’s disability and race conceptualizations to account for the ways intersecting, oppressive ideologies are perpetuated in young children’s worlds.
Natalia M. Rojas, Pamela Morris, Amudha Balaraman
, December 2020
This study aims to examine the impact of investments in PD within the context of an expansion of universal preschool in one of the nation’s largest school districts.
Remy Pages, Dylan J. Lukes, Drew H. Bailey, Greg J. Duncan
, August 2020
This study replicated and extended Deming’s evaluation of Head Start’s life cycle skill formation impacts in three ways.
Meghan P. McCormick, Mirjana Pralica, Paola Guerrero-Rosada, Christina Weiland, JoAnn Hsueh, Barbara Condliffe, Jason Sachs, Catherine Snow
, July 2020
Researchers found that growth in skills slowed during summer for all children, but the patterns varied by domain and group.
Tyler Watts, Deanna Ibrahim, Alaa Khader, Chen Li, Jill Gandhi, Cybele Raver
, June 2020
Researchers found that adolescents who participated in an early childhood educational intervention program were more likely to opt out of their assigned neighborhood school and attend schools with better indicators of academic performance.
Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland, Christine Pitts, Margaret Burchinal
June 2020
Researchers found that kindergarteners in 2017 had moderately lower math and reading skills than in 2010, but that inequalities at school entry by race/ethnicity and school poverty level have decreased during this period.
Lindsay Weixler, Jon Valant, Daphna Bassok, Justin B. Doromal, Alica Gerry
, June 2020
Researchers found that text message reminders increased verification rates by seven percentage points (regardless of tone) and that personalized messages increased enrollment rates for some groups.
Merel de Bondt, Ingrid A. Willenberg, Adriana G. Bus
, May 2020
The findings corroborate the assumption that book giveaway programs promote children’s home literacy environment, which subsequently results in more interest in reading and children scoring higher on measures of literacy-related skills prior to and during the early years of school.
Megan Kuhfeld, Dennis J. Condron, and Douglas B. Downey
, May 2020
Researchers found that Black-White achievement gaps widen during school periods and shrink during summers, whereas Asian students generally pull ahead of White students at a faster rate during summers.
Dana Murano, Jeremy E. Sawyer, Anastasiya A. Lipnevich
, March 2020
Researchers found that preschool children benefit from social and emotional learning interventions in different contexts, particularly children who are identified as being in need of early intervention.
Americo N. Amorim, Lieny Jeon, Yolanda Abel, Eduardo F. Felisberto, Leopoldo N. F. Barbosa, Natália Martins Dias
, March 2020
Researchers found that the experimental classrooms that used the 20 games in a game-enhanced educational program for 3 months gained 68% in their reading scores compared to control classrooms.
Denis Dumas, Daniel McNeish, Julie Sarama, Douglas Clements
, October 2019
Researchers found that students who receive a short-term intervention in preschool exhibit significantly steeper growth curves as they approach their eventual skill level.
Stephanie M. Reich, Joanna C. Yau, Ying Xu, Tallin Muskat, Jessica Uvalle, Daniela Cannata
, September 2019
Researchers found that e-books offer many, but not all, of the same educational affordance as print books.
Allison Atteberry, Daphna Bassok, Vivian C. Wong
, September 2019
Researchers found that the full-day pre-K offer produced substantial, positive effects on children’s receptive vocabulary skills and teacher-reported measures of cognition, literacy, math, physical, and socioemotional development.
Francis A. Pearman, II
, September 2019
The study found that pre-K had no measurable impact on children’s third-grade math achievement regardless of children’s neighborhood conditions. However, pre-K significantly improved third-grade reading achievement for children living in high-poverty neighborhoods.
Terri J. Sabol, Emily C. Ross, Allison Frost
, July 2019
Researchers found that average center-level quality was not related to children’s development. However, differences in within-center classroom instructional quality were related to children’s academic and social skills.
Gabrielle A. Strouse, Lisa A. Newland, Daniel J. Mourlam
, July 2019
This study highlighted a contrast between how parents and children view media and suggests that parents might better facilitate children’s digital media use by creating more interactive digital media co-use opportunities.
Adi Elimelech, Dorit Aram
, June 2019
Researchers found that a digital game can help preschoolers progress in their spelling skills without the support of an adult. Auditory support is important, and the visual support significantly adds to children’s spelling performance.
Alanna Sincovich, Tess Gregory, Yasmin Harman-Smith, Sally Anne Brinkman
, June 2019
Researchers found that children who attended playgroup had better development at school entry relative to those who had not attended playgroup.
He Sun, Jieying Loh, Adam Charles Roberts
, May 2019
Researchers found that children in the animated condition outperform their counterparts in total fixation duration, target word production, and storytelling of one of the stories.
Diane M. Early, Weilin Li, Kelly L. Maxwell, Bentley D. Ponder
, May 2019
Researchers found that among children enrolled in free or reduced-price lunch, participation in Georgia’s Pre-K was associated with higher test scores and greater likelihood of scoring proficient or above; however, the opposite was true for children not enrolled in free or reduced-price lunch.
Douglas H. Clements, Julie Sarama, Arthur J. Baroody, Candace Joswick, Christopher B. Wolfe
, April 2019
Researchers evaluated a hypothesis of learning trajectories that instruction should be presented (only) one learning trajectory level beyond a child’s present level in the domain of early shape composition.
Courtney A. Zulauf, Katherine M. Zinsser
, March 2019
Researchers found that teachers who had more negative perceptions of parents and perceived less center support working with parents were more likely to have requested a removal of a child in the past year.
Matthew Manning, Gabriel T. W. Wong, Christopher M. Fleming, Susanne Garvis
, March 2019
Researchers found that higher teacher qualifications are significantly correlated with higher quality ECEC environments.
Sonia Q. Cabell, Tricia A. Zucker, Jamie DeCoster, Stefanie B. Copp, Susan Landry
, February 2019
Researchers found that children entering the school year with higher skill levels benefited from a language/literacy text messaging program while those with lower initial skill levels benefited from a health/well-being text messaging program.
Katharina Kohl, Jessica A. Willard, Alexandru Agache, Lilly-Marlen Bihler, Birgit Leyendecker
, February 2019
Researchers found that classroom process quality predicted German vocabulary only for DLLs with low exposure to German in the family.
Vi-Nhuan Le, Diana Schaack, Kristen Neishi, Marc W. Hernandez, Rolf Blank
January 2019
Researchers found that greater exposure to advanced content was associated with better interpersonal skills, better approaches to learning, better attentional focus, and lower externalizing behaviors.
Tutrang Nguyen, Jade Marcus Jenkins, Anamarie Auger Whitaker
June 2018
Researchers found that children in both Head Start and public pre-K classrooms benefit from targeted, content-specific curricula.
Pamela A. Morris, Maia Connors, Allison Friedman-Krauss, Dana Charles McCoy, Christina Weiland, Avi Feller, Lindsay Page, Howard Bloom, Hirokazu Yoshikawa
, April 2018
Researchers found that the topline Head Start Impact Study results of Head Start’s average impacts mask substantial variation in its effectiveness and that one key source of that variation was in the counterfactual experiences and the context of Head Start sites.
W. Steven Barnett, Kwanghee Jung, Allison Friedman-Krauss, Ellen C. Frede, Milagros Nores, Jason T. Hustedt, Carollee Howes, Marijata Daniel-Echols
March 2018
The study finds differences in effect sizes of eight state-funded pre-K programs and suggests that pre-K programs should attend more to enhancing learning beyond simple literacy skills.
Daphna Bassok, Anna J. Markowitz, Daniel Player, Michelle Zagardo
, March 2018
Researchers found little correspondence between parents’ evaluations of program characteristics and any external measures of those same characteristics.
Kelly M. Purtell, Arya Ansari
, February 2018
Researchers found that the association between age composition and children’s academic skills was dependent on classroom quality and that classroom quality was less predictive of children’s skills in mixed-age classrooms.
Rachel Valentino
September 2017
Researchers found large “quality gaps” in public pre-K between poor, minority students and non-poor, non-minority students.
Jocelyn Bonnes Bowne, Katherine A. Magnuson, Holly S. Schindler, Greg J. Duncan, Hirokazu Yoshikawa
, February 2017
Researchers found that both class size and child–teacher ratio showed nonlinear relationships with cognitive and achievement effect sizes.
Christina Weiland, Dana Charles McCoy, Elizabeth Grace, Soojin Oh Park
, January 2017
Researchers found that low-income parents react to the impending kindergarten transition by increasing their provision of parent–child language and literacy activities but not related materials.
Daphna Bassok, Scott Latham
, January 2017
Researchers found that students in the more recent cohort entered kindergarten with stronger math and literacy skills.
Christina Weiland, Meghan McCormick, Shira Mattera, Michelle Maier, Pamela Morris
March 2018
Researchers performed a cross-study review across five diverse large-scale evaluations to identify common features that have characterized successful implementations of the "strongest hope" model for improving instructional quality in large-scale public preschool programs.
Eric Dearing, Henrik Zachrisson, Arnstein Mykletun, Claudio Toppelberg
February 2018
Researchers investigated the consequences of Norway's universal early childhood education and care (ECEC) scale-up for children's early language skills, exploiting variation in ECEC coverage across birth cohots and municipalities in a population-based sample.
Erica H. Greenberg
January 2018
Researchers examined a nationally representative poll of preferences for targeted and universal preschool.
Franziska Egert, Ruben G. Fukkink, Andrea G. Eckhardt
January 2018
Reachers summarized findings from (quasi)-experimental studies that evaluated in-service training effects for ECEC professionals on external quality ratings and child development.
Dana McCoy, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Greg Duncan, Holly Schindler, Katherine Magnuson, Rui Yang, Andrew Koepp, Jack Shonkoff
November 2017
Reachers use meta-analysis of 22 high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducted between 1960 and 2016 to find that on average, participation in early childhood education (ECE) leads to statistically significant reductions in special education place and grade retention.
Rachel Valentino
September 2017
Reachers found large "quality gaps" in public pre-K between poor, minority students and non-poor, non-minority students, ranging from 0.3 to 0.7 SD on a range of classroom observational measures.
George Farkas, Greg Duncan, Margaret Burchinal, Deborah Lowe Vandell
June 2016
Analyzing data from two nationally representative kindergarten cohort, researchers examined the mathematics content teachers cover in kindergarten.
Mimi Engel, Amy Claessens, Tyler Watts, George Farkas
June 2016
Analyzing data from two nationally representative kindergarten cohort, researchers examined the mathematics content teachers cover in kindergarten.
Katherine Magnuson, Jane Waldfogel
May 2016
Researchers used data from the 1968-2013 October current Population Survey to document trends in 3- and 4-year-old children's enrollment in center-based early childhood education, focusing on gaps in enrollment among children from low-,middle-,and high-income families.
Daphna Bassok, Scott Latham, Anna Rorem
January 2016
Researchers compare public school kindergarten classrooms between 1998 and 2010 using two large, nationally representative data sets.
Paul L. Morgan, George Farkas, Marianne M. Hillemeier, Steve Maczuga
January 2016
Researchers examined the age of onset, overt-time dynamics, and mechisms underlying science achievement gaps in U.S. elementary and middle schools.
Walker A. Swain, Matthew G. Springer, Kerry G. Hofer
,December 2015
Authors found a positive interaction between teaching quality and state pre-K exposure through comparing student-level data from a statewide pre-K experiment with records of teacher observation scores.
Clara G. Muschkin, Helen F. Ladd, Kenneth A. Dodge
December 2015
Research found that access to state-supported early childhood programs significantly reduces the likelihood that children will be placed in special education in the third grade, academically benefiting students and resulting in considerable cost savings to school districts.
Otilia C. Barbu, David B. Yaden, Deborah Levine-Donnerstein, Ronald W. Marx
July 2015
Results of this study indicated an overlap of 55% to 72% variance between the domains of the psychometric properties of the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA) and a 13-item approach to learning rating scale (AtL) derived from the Arizona Early Learning Standards (AELS).
Jade Marcus Jenkins, George Farkas, Greg J. Duncan, Margaret Burchinal, Deborah Lowe Vandell
July 2015
Researchers found that children attending Head Start at age 3 develop stronger pre-reading skills in a high-quality pre-kindergarten at age 4 compared with attending Head Start at age 4.
Tyler W. Watts, Greg J. Duncan, Robert S. Siegler, Pamela E. Davis-Kean
September 2014
Researchers found that preschool mathematics ability predicts mathematics achievement through age 15, even after accounting for early reading, cognitive skills, and family and child characteristics but that growth in mathematical ability between age 54 months and first grade is an even stronger predictor of adolescent mathematics achievement.
Amy Claessens, Mimi Engel, F. Chris Curran
, November 2013
Using nationally representative data, the authors examine the association between reading and mathematics, finding that children benefit from exposure to advanced content regardless of whether they attended preschool.
Timothy J. Bartik
, January/February 2012
This review of (Arthur J. Reynolds, Arthur J. Rolnick, Michelle M. Englund, Judy A. Temple) notes that the book provides a vast amount of information in early childhood programs and their benefits, but that a synthesis giving policy makers a clear menu of choice is missing.
John W. Fantuzzo, Vivian L. Gadsden, Paul A. McDermott
, June 2011
Two curriculum programs – Evidence-Based Programs for Integrated Curricula (EPIC), which focuses on comprehensive mathematics, language, and literacy skills, and the Developmental Learning Materials Early Childhood Express – produced significant growth rates in literacy for students in Head Start classrooms.
Loren M. Marulis, Susan B. Neuman
, September 2010
Researchers found that although they may improve oral language skills, vocabulary interventions even in the preschool and kindergarten years are not sufficiently powerful to close the gap between middle- and upper-income and at-risk children.
William H. Teale, Kathleen A. Paciga
, May 2010
This article argues that the influences of the National Early Literacy Panel (NELP 2008) report on prekindergarten and kindergarten classroom instructional practice is both insufficiently clear and overly narrow with respect to what preschool teachers should be focusing on instructionally in early literary.
Suzanne E. Mol, Adriana G. Bus, Maria T. de Jong
, June 2009
This study of preschool and kindergarten classrooms examines to what extent interactive storybook reading stimulates vocabulary and print knowledge, the two pillars of learning to read, finding implications that both quality and frequency of book reading in classrooms and are important.
, June 2009
The results of this randomized controlled trial test of lead and assistant Head Start teachers supported the conclusion that enriched curriculum components and professional development support can produce improvements in multiple domains of teaching quality.
W. Steven Barnett
, January 2009
Reviewer Barnett compares and contrasts the opinions of other reviewers and reiterates his concerns about the facts presented in (Bruce Stanford). by W. Steven Barnett
Susan B. Neuman
, January 2009
In response to colleagues’ more negative reviews of (Bruce Stanford), Neuman applauds Fuller’s willingness to be controversial and raise questions about resolving problems in early education.
W. Steven Barnett
, January 2009
This review of (Bruce Stanford) focuses on errors the reviewer finds in the research literature and in the book’s claims about early education costs and benefits.
Susan B. Neuman
, January 2009
This review of (Bruce Stanford) considers the book one of the most thorough and thought-provoking analyses of the struggle over early education.
Lilian G. Katz
, January 2009
This review of (Bruce Stanford) finds the book to be a rich although confusing exploration of the issues involved in the universal availability of preschool education.
Douglas H. Clements, Julie Sarama
, June 2008
Early interventions were found to help preschoolers develop a foundation of mathematics knowledge in this randomized-trails study of thirty-six preschool classrooms’ use of a comprehensive model of research-based curricula development.
Gary T. Henry, Craig S. Gordon, Dana K. Rickman
, March 2006
This study finds that a group of children who were eligible for Head Start but attended state prekindergarten were at least as well prepared as similar children who attended Head Start.
Milagros Nores, Clive R. Belfield, W. Steven Barnett, Lawrence Schweinhart
, September 2005
This cost-benefit ratio for the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an intensive preschool intervention for at-risk children in Ypsilanti, Michigan, renders outcomes such as educational attainment, earnings, criminal activity, and welfare receipt in money terms.
Katherine A. Magnuson, Marcia K. Meyers, Christopher J. Ruhm, Jane Waldfogel
, March 2004
Controlling for family background and other factors, this study found that children who attended a center or school-based preschool program the year before entering kindergarten performed better on assessments of reading and math skills. | | | - Action research: The benefits for early childhood educators
- This article introduces the purpose, process and benefits of engaging in action research in early childhood settings.
- Engaging in action research is an effective form of professional learning for educators.
- Action research is authentic because it allows educators to respond to issues of importance unique to their own settings.
- Educators have ownership over their action research projects, resulting in ‘transformative’ rather than ‘transmissive’ professional learning.
- Using action research in early childhood settings invites collaboration between educators, families and community.
- The focus of an action research project can be personalised to respond to educators’ interests and passions.
- The cycle of action research invites a sustained engagement in a particular aspect of educators’ work, providing many opportunities to question and reflect on the research topic.
PublicationMiller, M. (2017). Action research: The benefits for early childhood educators. Belonging: Early Years Journal , 6 (3) , pp. 26- 3 2 https://eprints.qut.edu.au/114335/  An official website of the United States government The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site. The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely. - Publications
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- BMJ Glob Health
- v.4(Suppl 4); 2019
 Early childhood development: an imperative for action and measurement at scaleLinda richter. 1 Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg-Braamfontein, South Africa Maureen Black2 RTI International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA 3 Early Childhood Development, Unicef USA, New York City, New York, USA Bernadette Daelmans4 Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland Chris Desmond5 DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Amanda Devercelli6 Early Childhood Development, World Bank Group, Washington, District of Columbia, USA 7 Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland Günther Fink8 Household Economics and Health Systems, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland 9 Global Health and Population, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Jody Heymann10 Fielding School of Public Health and WORLD Policy Analysis Center, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA Joan Lombardi11 Early Opportunities, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Chunling Lu12 Division of Global Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA Sara NaickerEmily vargas-barón. 13 RISE Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA Experiences during early childhood shape biological and psychological structures and functions in ways that affect health, well-being and productivity throughout the life course. The science of early childhood and its long-term consequences have generated political momentum to improve early childhood development and elevated action to country, regional and global levels. These advances have made it urgent that a framework, measurement tools and indicators to monitor progress globally and in countries are developed and sustained. We review progress in three areas of measurement contributing to these goals: the development of an index to allow country comparisons of young children’s development that can easily be incorporated into ongoing national surveys; improvements in population-level assessments of young children at risk of poor early development; and the production of country profiles of determinants, drivers and coverage for early childhood development and services using currently available data in 91 countries. While advances in these three areas are encouraging, more investment is needed to standardise measurement tools, regularly collect country data at the population level, and improve country capacity to collect, interpret and use data relevant to monitoring progress in early childhood development. Summary box- New knowledge of the extent to which experiences during early childhood shape health, well-being and productivity throughout the life course has prompted action to improve early childhood development at the country, regional and global levels.
- Advances have been made in three areas of measurement needed to achieve these goals: population-level child assessments, population proxies of children at risk of poor childhood development, and country and regional profiles of drivers and supports for early childhood development.
- Regular, country-comparable, population-level measurements of childhood development, as well as threats to development and available supports and services, are needed to drive progress and accountability in efforts to improve early childhood development.
IntroductionScientific findings from diverse disciplines are in agreement that critical elements of lifelong health, well-being and productivity are shaped during the first 2–3 years of life, 1 beginning with parental health and well-being. 2 The experiences and exposures of young children during this time-bound period of neuroplasticity shape the development of both biological and psychological structures and functions across the life course. Adversities during pregnancy and early childhood, due to undernutrition, stress, poverty, violence, chronic illnesses and exposure to toxins, among others, can disrupt brain development, with consequences that endure throughout life and into future generations. 3 4 Children whose early development is compromised have fewer personal and social skills and less capacity to benefit from schooling. These deficits limit their work opportunities and earnings as adults. 5 A corollary of early susceptibility to adversity includes responsiveness to opportunities during these early years. As a result, interventions during the first 3 years of life are more effective and less costly than later efforts to compensate for early adversities and to promote human development. 6 It is estimated that, in 2010, at least 249 million (43%) children under the age of 5 years in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) were at risk of poor early childhood development (ECD) as a consequence of being stunted or living in extreme poverty. 7 This loss of potential is costly for individuals and societies. The average percentage loss of adult income per year is estimated at 26%, increasing the likelihood of persistent poverty for these children, families and societies. 5 Assuming 125 million children are born each year with a global average of poor infant growth, 8 the estimated annual global income loss is US$177 billion. 9 These impacts have serious consequences on economic growth. Recent World Bank estimates suggest that the average country’s per capital gross domestic product would be 7% higher than it is now had stunting been eliminated when today’s workers were children. 10 At the global level, human capital accounts for as much as two-thirds of the wealth differences between countries. ECD is the foundation of human capital. 11 Supported by a growing body of evidence and increasing global interest in this field, ECD is included in the 2015 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Target 4.2 is ‘improved access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education’. Progress towards achieving this target is measured by indicator 4.2.1, ‘the proportion of children under 5 years of age who are developmentally on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being, by sex’. ECD is closely linked to other SDGs as well, for example, eradicate poverty (1), end hunger and improve nutrition (2), ensure healthy lives (3), achieve gender equality (5), reduce inequality in and among countries (10), and promote peaceful societies (16), and it is implied in several more. 5 The United Nations Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, 2016–2030 synthesises the 17 SDGs in three strategies: survive, thrive and transform. Survive refers to sustained and increased reductions in preventable deaths of women, newborns, children and adolescents, as well as stillbirths; thrive refers to children receiving the nurturing care necessary to reach their developmental potential; and transform refers to comprehensive changes in policies, programmes and services for women, children and adolescents to achieve their potential. 12 ECD has also become an important component of other global agendas, including Scaling Up Nutrition, the Global Partnership for Education, the Global Financing Facility for Every Woman Every Child, the Every Woman Every Child movement, the work plans of the WHO, Unicef and the World Bank Group, the G20, 13 international funding agencies, and philanthropic foundations. 7 These multifaceted findings have generated political momentum to improve ECD as a critical phase in the life course, making it urgent to develop measurement tools and indicators to monitor progress globally and in countries. Advances in measurement are needed to support efforts to motivate and track political and financial commitments, and to monitor implementation and impact. This means that we must be able to determine how many and which children are thriving, and on track in health, learning and psychosocial well-being. Measurement of children’s progress in childhood is acknowledged to be challenging because development is by nature dynamic and children have varying individual trajectories. Well-validated instruments of individual development are complex and require extensive training and expertise. These challenges are amplified in efforts to make measurements across populations of children. Taking these limitations into account, we review progress in three areas of measurement that are contributing data to the current political momentum for ECD and efforts to monitor implementation and impact. Progress is being made to construct a feasible country-comparable measure of young children’s development that could be incorporated into national surveys, to improve proxies of population levels of young children at risk of poor early development, and to generate country profiles of determinants, drivers and coverage for early childhood development and services, using currently available data. A new initiative to construct a population measure of ECDA direct measure of the development of children 0–5 years that could be administered globally and used both within and across countries is urgently needed. Efforts have been made since the 1980s to develop a globally applicable measure of ECD, with the major challenges being individual and cultural variations in the onset of early skills. 14 Currently, the Early Child Development Index (ECDI) is included as the indicator of SDG goal 4, target 4.2. It is a composite index, first introduced in Unicef’s fourth Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) in 2010. It is derived from 10 caregiver-reported questions designed for children aged 36–59 months to assess four domains of development: literacy-numeracy, learning/cognition, physical development and socioemotional development. Some items are acknowledged to be unsuitable for assessing development, 15 and efforts are under way to revise the index, as well as to include items applicable to children younger than 3 years of age. Three research efforts have collaborated to create the Global Scale for Early Development (GSED): the Infant and Young Child Development from the WHO, 16 the Caregiver-Reported Early Development Instrument from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 17 and the Developmental Score from the Global Child Development Group at the University of the West Indies. 18 The goals of the GSED are to develop two instruments for measuring ECD (0–3 years) globally: a population-based instrument and a programme evaluation instrument, as described in table 1 . Global Scale for Early Development: population and programme measures | Goal | Administration | Estimated duration (min) | Score | | Population | | Caregiver report. | 5–10 | Holistic. | | Programme | | Caregiver report combined with direct assessment. | <30 | Domains of development (motor, cognitive, language and so on). |
The GSED takes advantage of large-scale and cohort studies from many countries and is harmonising efforts to generate population-based and programmatic evaluation measures of the development of children aged 0–3 years old that can be used globally ( table 2 ). The scale will be available for country testing in 2019. The aim is to have the population-based measure incorporated into national surveys, including Unicef’s MICS and the US Agency for International Development’s Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), to produce globally comparable monitoring data. Efforts are also under way to harmonise the revision of ECDI and the development of GSED to align on child outcome measurement from birth to 59 months of age. Development and validation of the Global Scale for Early Development Predefined
characteristics | Methodology for prototype creation | Validation | | | | |
CREDI, Caregiver-Reported Early Development Instrument; D-score, Developmental Score; IYCD, Infant and Young Child Development. A country-comparable proxy for population levels of risk of poor childhood developmentInformation about children’s risk for poor development is important, as is identifying areas for intervention. To track these, a proxy measure of population levels of young children at risk of suboptimal development has been calculated. Stunting and poverty were used in the first published estimation in 2007 of the global prevalence of risk to children’s development. The initial choice of indicators was based on evidence that they both predict poor cognitive development and school performance. 19 20 Additional advantages are that their definitions are standardised and many countries have data on both indicators. 21 Lu et al 21 updated the earlier values to 2010, using the 2006 WHO growth standards and World Bank poverty rates (US$1.25 per person per day), leading to an estimate of 249 million children or 43% of all children under 5 years of age in LMICs being at risk of poor childhood development. The accuracy and comparability of the later estimates benefited greatly from major advances in both data availability and estimation methods. 21 To estimate the long-term consequences of poor ECD, studies focus on estimating the impact on subsequent schooling and labour market participation and wages. The current estimate, that the average percentage of annual adult income lost as a result of stunting and extreme poverty in early childhood is about 26%, is supported by follow-up adult data from early life interventions. Two programmes have found wage increases between 25% in Jamaica attributed to a psychosocial intervention 22 and 46% in Guatemala attributed to a protein supplement. 23 In order to improve the estimate of risk, efforts are under way to include additional risks experienced in ECD known to affect health and well-being across the life course. For example, adding low maternal schooling and exposure to harsh punishment to stunting and extreme poverty, for 15 countries with available data from MICS in 2010/2011, increased the number of children estimated to be at risk of poor childhood development substantially. 5 Country profiles of ECDPopulation-based measures of early child development and proxies of children at risk give an indication of prevalence, and indicators of disparity can be derived according to gender, urban–rural location and socioeconomic status. However, they do not include drivers, determinants nor coverage of interventions that could improve childhood development. The Countdown to 2015 for Maternal, Newborn and Child Survival , established in 2005, set a precedent by creating mechanisms to portray multidimensional aspects of progress towards improving maternal and child health, and is testimony of its value. 24 Countdown to 2030 , which tracks maternal, child and adolescent health and nutrition goals, has expanded to address the broader SDG agenda, including ECD, health in humanitarian settings and conflict, and adolescent health and well-being. 25 26 It includes coverage and equity of essential interventions, as well as indicators of determinants and the enabling environment provided by policies. This approach has been applied to ECD using the Nurturing Care Framework, 27 launched at the 71st World Health Assembly. The concept of nurturing care was introduced in the 2017 Lancet Series Advancing Early Child Development: From Science to Scale . Nurturing Care Framework comprises conditions for early development: good health and nutrition; protection from environmental and personal harm; affectionate and encouraging responses to young children’s communications; and opportunities for young children to learn through exploration and interpersonal interactions. 7 These early experiences are nested in caregiver–child and family relationships. In turn, parents, families and other caregivers require support from a facilitating environment of policies, services and communities. Policies, services and programmes can protect women’s health and well-being, safeguard pregnancy and birth, and enable families and caregivers to promote and protect young children’s development. 6 The Nurturing Care Framework has been used to produce ECD profiles for 91 LMICs. 28 Countries were selected either to ensure alignment of ECD with Countdown to 2030 , or because more than 30% of children are estimated to be at risk of poor ECD in 2010, using the methods described in Lu et al 21 and Black et al . 7 These country profiles, which consist of currently available data from LMICs, are laid out to represent the Nurturing Care Framework. The profiles consist of the following sections: - Selected demographic indicators of the country relevant to early child development: total population, annual births, children under 5 years of age and under-5 mortality.
- Threats to ECD, including maternal mortality, young motherhood, low birth weight, preterm births, child poverty, under-5 stunting, harsh punishment and inadequate supervision.
- The prevalence of young children at risk of poor child development disaggregated by gender and rural–urban residence, and lifetime costs of growth deficit in early childhood in US dollars.
- The facilitating policy environment for caregivers and children, as indexed by relevant conventions and national policies.
- Support and services to promote ECD in the five areas of nurturing care: early learning, health, nutrition, responsive caregiving, and security and safety.
Most of the existing data are published in Unicef’s annual State of the World’s Children. Convention and policy data come from, among others, the United Nations Treaty Collections and the International Labour Organization. Figure 1 shows an example of the country profiles, with the country name replace by ‘Country Profiles’.  An example of an early childhood development (ECD) country profile. CRC, convention on the rights of the child. In a forthcoming paper, Lu and Richter (2019) describe in detail the updated estimates of children at risk of poor childhood development using the newly released poverty line of US$1.9 per person per day to estimate that, in 2015, 233 million children or 40.5% of children under 5 years of age were at risk of poor childhood development. Figures 2 and 3 show the estimates of risk for poor ECD across a decade, from 2005 to 2010 and 2015, and using the 2010 data variations between children at risk living in rural and urban areas. Gender is not illustrated here because, in most countries, the differences are small and not statistically significant.  Decline in the number of countries with high proportions of young children at risk of poor development between 2005 and 2015.  Differences in risk of poor development among urban and rural children in 63 countries (most recent years with available data). Figure 2 shows that, between 2005 and 2010, countries with two-thirds of young children at risk (>67%) declined in both central Europe and South-East Asia. There was little change in countries with high proportions of young children at risk in sub-Saharan Africa during this period, and by 2015 countries with the highest proportion of children at risk were in Central and Southern Africa. Estimates on the prevalence of children at risk of poor development in urban and rural areas were derived using DHS, MICS and country data for 63 countries with available data in most recent years ( figure 3 ). The differences are strikingly high, with more rural children at risk than their urban counterparts in 50 countries (differences of more than 20%). Almost all countries with 40% point differences were in sub-Saharan Africa. 28 There are additional indicators that ideally should be included in a monitoring framework, but currently lack comparable country data. Data are usually unavailable because reliable, valid instruments feasible for multicountry administration are still in development, or the instruments are not yet included in representative surveys. In particular, there are as yet no global population-based indicators for assessing responsive caregiving. Suggestions have been made that data should be collected on whether information about ECD and caregiver–child interaction is publicly disseminated, whether home visits or groups are provided for parents at high risk of experiencing difficulties providing their children with nurturing care, and whether affordable good quality child day care is available for families who need it. 29 National data on laws and policies that support responsive caregiving are also insufficient, for example, wages and other forms of income to enable families to provide for their young children. 30 Additional data gaps concern risks arising from poor parental mental health, 31 low maternal schooling, and maternal tobacco and alcohol use, among others, prevalence of childhood developmental delays and disabilities, 32 and maltreatment and institutionalisation of young children. 33 There is also no comparable information on government budget allocation to ECD or household expenditure on ECD services care, among others. Multidisciplinary scientific evidence and political momentum are focusing on ECD as a critical phase in enhancing health and well-being across the life course. Additional measurements and indicators for monitoring and evaluation are urgently needed to support expansions in implementation and investment, and to report progress. New data will stimulate global, regional and national action, and in turn motivate for more areas of ECD to be covered in national surveys. The Nurturing Care Framework provides a platform for three important areas of work. First, very significant progress is being made through the revision of the ECDI and the development of the GSED, a short caregiver-reported population measure of ECD that could feasibly be included in DHS, MICS and other nationally representative household surveys. The GSED will enable ECD to be tracked at population levels, and for programmes and services to be monitored and evaluated in comparable ways. Second, a country-comparable proxy of the risk of poor ECD developed from 2004 data and updated with 2010 data has been extended to 2015, enabling comparisons to be made globally, regionally and by country across the last decade. Plans are in place to update these estimates regularly, and to add new risks as data for more countries become available. Third, using these estimates, data included in Countdown to 2030 , and additional data from MICS and policy databases, initial profiles have been constructed for 91 LMICs. The profiles are organised according to the ecological model of the Nurturing Care Framework with policies, services and programmes supporting families and caregivers to provide good health and nutrition, security and safety, opportunities for early learning, and responsive caregiving for young children to thrive. The further development of these profiles is overseen by a multiagency committee as part of Countdown to 2030 and are freely available ( http://www.ecdan.org/countries.html and https://nurturing-care.org/?page_id=703 ). Unicef will update the country data annually and the profiles will be reproduced every 2 years. However, as indicated earlier, substantial gaps in national and global data on topics of concern to ECD remain. The current global estimation on burden of risks, for example, does not include known risk factors other than stunting and extreme poverty, as a result of which the existing burden calculation is considerably underestimated. 5 The limited information on ECD investments at the country and global levels is exacerbated by the lack of appreciation of what constitute essential and continuous services, standard indicators for measuring ECD interventions and policies, as well as systematically collected data. Country capacity needs to be strengthened and ECD costing modules integrated into existing household income or expenditure surveys, and routinely collected from specific types of programmes. Clear definitions are needed to track donor contributions to ECD, and efforts should be made to address data issues, including collecting data from emerging donor countries (eg, China), foundations and international non-governmental organisations that are playing an increasing role in financing ECD, as has been called for by the G20. 33 National policies, strategic plans and laws which support ECD through nurturing care should be tracked for this intersectoral area. To improve measurements of risks, intervention coverage, policies, financial commitments and impact on young children’s development, more investment is needed to regularly collect and disseminate data at the national and subnational levels. Analytical gaps at the country and global levels exist, especially with respect to equity analyses by household wealth, maternal education and rural–urban location, as well as by gender and child age within 0–5 years. In conclusion, progress has been extremely positive, but too slow and too fragmented for the bold global agenda of ECD and the Nurturing Care Framework. The alliance with Countdown to 2030 is helpful as there is much to be learnt from the initiative’s experience under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as well as collaboration with the SDGs. The country profiles boldly portray what we currently know about ECD in some of the most at-risk conditions and will prove a valuable tool for advocacy and implementation, including to improve measurement. Successful implementation and impact are dependent on accountability supported by regularly updated reliable and valid information.  |
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