ABSTRACT
Despite the extensive international overview of in-service professional development in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), the majority of studies concentrate on short-term training programmes or workshops. The existing scientific literature suggests that these approaches have either minimal or no impact on effective ECEC transformation. Nevertheless, there is a growing global interest in Continuous Professional Development (CPD) approaches situated in the real professional context as a new avenue for praxeological processes. A systematic review of English-language empirical research published between 2018 and 2022 was conducted to identify the features and impacts of CPD approaches that have a significant influence on the transformation of ECEC practices and contexts. The synthesis and analysis of 17 studies yielded thought-provoking findings regarding the approaches, the transformation of ECEC praxis, as well as children and practitioners’ learning. This systematic review is a pioneering endeavour in identifying and synthesising empirical studies that facilitate a more in-depth understanding of the connection between effective CPD and praxis transformation in ECEC.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, I. P.), through a PhD Scholarship (SFRH/BD/146235/2019), with the support of CIEC (Research Centre on Child Studies at the University of Minho, Portugal).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).