Activity settings and attributed social disadvantage as influencing factors on teacher–child interaction quality in central Germany

ABSTRACT

In Germany, there is still a great need for research on the quality of teacher-child interactions in ECEC institutions. Especially, because social interactions and relationships are crucial for (early) learning and development (Ulferts et al., 2019). However, there are hardly any results on factors influencing the interaction quality. This paper addresses the issue by assessing interaction quality of 48 ECEC teachers in German Kindergartens using the CLASS (Pianta et al., 2008). The influences of two factors - the activity setting and the attributed social disadvantage on the child - are explored. Interaction quality analyses show mid to high quality scores for Emotional Support and Classroom Organization whereas the Instructional Support domain is rated low. Concerning the influencing factors, we find significant differences in interaction quality between the activity settings and significantly higher Instructional Support scores for the dyads with the child with an attributed social disadvantage.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System
• interaction quality
• ECEC quality
• activity setting
• social disadvantage

Acknowledgments

Presented data are part of the research projects ‘Cognitive Activation in inclusive Childcare Institutions’ (KoAkiK and KoAkiK II) funded by the Federal State of Lower Saxony, Ministry for Science and Culture (project period: 2017–2021). Participating working groups: Prof. Dr. Katja Mackowiak, Dr. Heike Wadepohl, Dr. Johanna Steinberg, Cathleen Bethke, Theresa Johannson, Lisa Keller, Stefani Linck, Matthias Mai; Prof. Dr. Rolf Werning, Dr. Michael Lichtblau, Dr. Antje Rothe, Lisa Disep; Prof. Dr. Claudia Schomaker, Kathrin Hormann, Laisa Quittkat (Leibniz University Hannover, GER); Prof. Dr. Ulla Walter, Julia Feesche, Nicole Heinze, Antje Kula (Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, GER). For further information, see https://www.ifs.uni-hannover.de/de/forschung/projekte/verbundprojekte-koakik/

We thank our student assistants for supporting the videographic data collection and Juliane Driller as well as Anna-Katharina Müller for their support in data processing. Finally yet importantly, we want to thank the participating ECEC teachers and children.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In particular Austria and (the German-speaking part of) Switzerland.

2 German Kindergarten is non-compulsory but is attended by over 90% of three to six year olds (until primary school enrollment).

 

3 Reasons for an incomplete observational data set (4 × 20min) and thus an exclusion are e.g., teachers’ partial absence during data collection period, non-realizability of certain situations (especially mealtimes) due to data privacy or internal specifications of the participating Kindergartens, too short durations of the videos (<10min), technical failures (e.g., image or sound interference, video conversion issues).

 

4 Dyadic situations were included because they are becoming increasingly important in the context of everyday integrated learning support. They do not represent a prepared and pre-structured (additive) classical learning arrangement but a possible setting in Kindergarten daily routines.

5 Unfortunately, children’s demographic information (e.g., gender, age) was not collected systematically, not even for the children in the dyadic learning situations.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Federal State of Lower Saxony (Germany), Ministry for Science and Culture.

Notes on contributors

Heike Wadepohl

Heike Wadepohl is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology for Special Education Needs, Institute of Special Education Needs, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. Her main research interests are related to early childhood development and educational trajectories as well as pedagogical quality and professionalization processes in ECEC institutions.

Cathleen Bethke

Cathleen Bethke was a research assistant in the KoAkiK-projects of the Department of Psychology for Special Education Needs, Institute of Special Education Needs, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, until 2021 and was mainly involved in the CLASS-ratings.