Scientific curiosity is often invoked as a resource for early science learning, yet it remains difficult to define and examine as it emerges in everyday kindergarten activity. This single-site interpretive qualitative case study explored how 5–6-year-old children enacted scientific curiosity during a researcher-facilitated, inquiry-oriented learning-garden unit in an Arabic-speaking public kindergarten in Israel. Twenty focal participants were selected from a class of 35 children. Data were generated through semi-structured group interviews and participant and non-participant observations were conducted before, during, and after the unit. Data were analyzed using inductive, interpretive qualitative content analysis focused on plant-related sensemaking, inquiry practices, and curiosity episodes. Findings showed that children’s explanations became more specific and more frequently referenced evidence related to plant growth conditions, including soil, air, heat, and season. Inquiry practices became visible in children’s talk and action through prediction, child-initiated why/how questions, comparisons across conditions, and simple measurements. Scientific curiosity was enacted through observable displays of wonder, sustained engagement with uncertainty, and connections to prior experiences and information resources. These findings suggest that, when organized as structured small-group inquiry, learning gardens can make curiosity, inquiry participation, and plant-related sensemaking visible in everyday kindergarten activity. The study highlights three design principles for inquiry-oriented kindergarten science: planned contrasts across conditions, repeated revisits over time, and open-ended questioning supported by simple tools.
High turnover among early care and education (ECE) teachers threatens workforce stability and may have negative implications for ECE program quality and children’s early learning and development. Previous research limited to specific regions or small samples has linked low compensation, workplace support, and mental well-being to teacher’ turnover intentions. However, these associations have not yet been examined within nationally representative data. This preregistered study examined the extent to which compensation, workplace support, and depressive symptoms were associated with turnover intention among a nationally representative sample of center-based ECE teachers. It also explore whether depressive symptoms moderated the links between compensation and workplace support and turnover intention. The study relied on data from the 2019 National Survey of Early Care and Education (NSECE) Workforce Questionnaire (N = 3,379). Weighted binary logistic regression analyses were conducted, as well as tests of two interaction effects between depressive symptoms and workplace support and between depressive symptoms and hourly wage. Results demonstrated that greater workplace support was associated with lower odds of turnover intention, and more depressive symptoms was associated with greater odds of turnover intention. Hourly wage was not significantly associated with turnover intention. Moreover, we did not find evidence of depressive symptoms moderating the associations between workplace support or hourly wage and turnover intention. Ultimately, the findings from this study suggest that workplace support and mental well-being may be particularly important to target to improve retention in the ECE workforce.
Children gradually develop their scientific literacy through play-based experiences in their early years. Several studies have emphasised the importance of developing children’s scientific literacy in the early years, highlighting the long-term benefits; however, sustaining scientific literacy to achieve greater benefits in subsequent stages remains an area that has yet to be adequately addressed in the research literature. This study explores how educators can support children in moving from developing to sustaining scientific literacy through play-based experiences in the early years. Using digital visual observation as part of a qualitative research design to understand the process and relationships, video data were collected and analysed from three similar play activities at a regional early childhood centre in Australia, followed by short, informal interviews with educators. The findings revealed that, with the educators’ supportive roles as play partners, these three everyday play-based experiences enabled children to apply and establish their everyday learning in practical situations, utilising their conscious understanding, critical and scientific thinking, and decision-making processes, supporting the sustained development of their scientific literacy. We outlined a four-stage continuous process toward sustaining scientific literacy, utilising a combination of planned teaching and continuous practices.
This study examines parents’ perspectives and anxieties during the transition from preschool to primary school using a sequential explanatory mixed-method design. Quantitative data were collected from 163 parents, followed by semi-structured interviews with 8 parents to gain deeper insights. Findings reveal significant parental anxiety regarding teacher profiles, peer bullying, the socio-cultural background of other parents, and academic homework loads. Crucially, the results indicate a systemic gap in institutional support; preschool teachers and administrators rarely conducted transition activities such as meetings, school visits, or readiness testing. This lack of formal guidance leaves parents in a persistent search for information, intensifying anxieties driven by uncertainty. Consequently, the study highlights that parental stress is not merely an individual emotional response but a result of structural and communicative deficiencies. These results emphasize the urgent need for integrating ecological and dynamic transition models into national educational policies to support families effectively.
This study explored teachers’ perspectives on the relationship between children’s self-concept, psychological safety, and question-asking behavior in early childhood classrooms. Employing a qualitative multisite case study design, the research involved 26 teachers and teaching assistants from five early childhood education institutions in rural East Java, Indonesia. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings suggested that participants interpreted self-concept as an important psychological condition associated with children’s willingness to participate. Teachers’ responsive practices and psychological safety were perceived as relational conditions that supported children’s expression of curiosity through question-asking. Rather than demonstrating causal relationships, this study provided an interpretive understanding of how educators perceived the interplay between children’s self-concept, classroom relationships, and participation. The findings underscored the importance of fostering psychological safety and responsive teacher–child interactions to support young children’s voice and agency in learning.
Embodied social robots (ESRs) are increasingly discussed in early childhood education, yet evidence on their relation to preschoolers’ social–emotional competence (SEC) remains fragmented. This scoping review synthesizes 25 peer-reviewed studies involving preschool-aged children and maps 86 child-level SEC findings across six condensed domains, measurement approaches, robot/intervention characteristics, and implementation contexts. Findings were mixed. Positive results were most often reported for proximal indicators of participation, engagement, and communication, whereas broader or more complex SEC-related outcomes showed more no-effect or mixed patterns. Outcome patterns also varied by methodology: behavioral observation and structured tasks more often captured positive change than interviews or system-recorded indicators, which were rarely supported by documented reliability or validation procedures. Only about one-third of findings reported psychometric validation. Most interventions relied on low-autonomy, non-personalized robots embedded in adult-guided activities, with uneven reporting of technical stability, implementation fidelity, and teacher preparedness/involvement. Overall, current evidence supports a cautious interpretation of ESRs as bounded, teacher-mediated supports rather than stand-alone solutions and points to the need for stronger measurement reporting, more ecologically grounded classroom research, and clearer ethical safeguards.
Early childhood today is increasingly influenced by the rapid rise of the digital age, with screen exposure becoming an ever-present part of a child’s life. As digital media progressively intertwines with our daily routines, many young learners are simultaneously losing access to the powerful, sensory-rich outdoor play experiences that have long supported early childhood development. This shift away from time spent outdoors limits a child’s opportunity to explore, imagine, and move freely—experiences widely recognized as essential to healthy growth. The comparison between the advantages and play, and particularly outdoor play, and the problematic effects of the use of excessive screen time for both learning and entertainment with young children is made in this paper. Several current studies in both play and screen time are used to build the argument for the need for more outdoor play and applied to the key ideas of this paper.
Even though play is commonplace in preschool education, a need is constantly highlighted to support preschool teachers in integrating concrete play-based methods and models for science teaching. However, this support needs to be tailored to the special professional needs, challenges, and educational contexts of preschool teachers. Drawing upon Fleer’s Conceptual PlayWorlds (CPW) model, this study examines preschool teachers’ collective design of CPW science activities within the context of a Professional Development (PD) program involving 28 in-service preschool teachers from six kindergartens in Greece, which are examined as six different cases. Teachers’ idiosyncratic needs and preferences along with researchers’ in situ support, have been explored through qualitative content analysis of whole-group/small-group discussions and post-reflections. Findings revealed that teachers exhibited a range of needs and styles when designing science activities within the CPW’s settings. The ways the researchers reflected on the diverse needs and styles to provide adaptive support based on teachers’ idiosyncratic characteristics were highlighted. The study informs teacher education practice through providing a framework for the design and implementation of PD programmes that offer personalised support that goes beyond one-size-fits-all solutions in early childhood science education.
This qualitative case study explores the hidden boundaries within family school partnerships in a multicultural early childhood classroom by examining the perspectives of two teachers and two parents from diverse cultural backgrounds. Conducted at a public preschool serving predominantly immigrant families, the study employed semi-structured interviews to investigate how cultural backgrounds shape understandings of family engagement. Findings reveal significant misalignments between participants' conceptualizations: while the White head teacher emphasized visible, school-based participation, immigrant parents and the Congolese teaching assistant valued trust-based relationships and home-based support that often remained invisible within traditional frameworks. While the study highlights the vital role of culturally aligned staff as intermediaries, it also reveals that such mediated communication often remains transactional rather than transformative. Drawing on Funds of Knowledge theory, the analysis demonstrates how deficit perspectives can undermine partnerships when families' culturally accumulated resources are not recognized. The findings underscore the need for systemic approaches to cultural competence in teacher preparation, moving beyond reliance on individual cultural insiders toward institution-wide practices that honor diverse forms of family engagement and foster genuine reciprocal partnerships.
Play and participation are key for children’s wellbeing and development. Children who may be at risk of developmental delays can exhibit limited play skills and have difficulty participating in play whist attending early education and care centres (ECECs). A Play and Participation Screening Service (PPSS) was developed and piloted in ECECs to detect children requiring additional supports. A mixed methods feasibility study using action research evaluated the feasibility of the screening tool using five criteria (acceptability, practicality, implementation, preliminary efficacy and demand) and explored barriers families encounter accessing supports. The PPSS was implemented sequentially across four ECECs with learnings taken from each setting and applied into subsequent settings. A total of 14 families completed the screening and feedback session and 13 completed screening interview, feedback session and ongoing support sessions. Caregivers and educators reported the service was acceptable and practical. Other feasibility criteria were partially met (implementation and preliminary efficacy), and one was not met (demand). Barriers to caregivers accessing services were identified. This study indicates preliminary support for a screening and support service provided to educators and caregivers of children attending ECECs. Findings highlight there is a need for a service navigator to support families in overcoming barriers and accessing recommended ongoing supports.
Disturbing statistics indicate an increasing prevalence of intrafamilial violence in Australia with one in three Australian women being victim-survivors of intrafamilial violence (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2023). Many of these victim-survivors have children who are also directly or indirectly impacted. Increases in all forms of intrafamilial violence mean that victim-survivors, particularly children, experience unprecedented physical, psychological, emotional, and social consequences of exposure. In light of the high rate of intrafamilial violence in Australia, and the government’s commitment to accessible child-care and early years learning, it is highly possible that early childhood teachers and other educators will interact with children who experience intrafamilial violence. As children who live with intrafamilial violence bring the trauma they experience to their early childhood education and care service, early childhood educators must have the skills and confidence to recognise the signs of exposure to intrafamilial violence and be ready to support children and foster their educational journey. The need for a rich, responsive early learning environment points to the urgency for educators to have the knowledge, skills, and confidence to support children experiencing the trauma of intrafamilial violence. This paper discusses the qualitative research undertaken to explore the knowledge and understanding practicing early childhood educators have about intrafamilial violence and its impact on children. The findings, which highlight an overwhelming dearth of knowledge from educators relating to supporting the development and wellbeing of a child exposed to intrafamilial violence, are discussed.
This study examines what became salient in preservice teachers’ (PSTs’) written sense-making as they conducted community-based observations of multilingual families in a children’s museum, and how they interpreted families’ language and literacy practices through written fieldwork artifacts. Situated within the Family Learning Observation and Analysis (FLOA) project, we analyzed 39 artifacts (fieldnotes, video analyses, and analytic reports) produced by 13 English-monolingual early childhood PSTs during a Spring 2025 museum-based field experience. Using multiple cycles of qualitative coding, we examined the interactional features that PSTs repeatedly treated as consequential for children’s engagement and participation. Three interconnected themes emerged across PSTs’ written sense-making: relational presence, translanguaging, and multimodal meaning-making. PSTs attended to publicly observable cues such as getting “on the child’s level,” following children’s lead, adjusting pacing and responsiveness, shifting between languages to sustain understanding and connection, and coordinating gesture, movement, gaze, and object use to guide participation. Findings suggest that informal community learning settings can function as professional learning contexts where multilingual families’ interactional expertise becomes visible and families are positioned as educational partners and sources of pedagogical insight for future early childhood educators.
Guided by Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which posits that children learn through their interactions with others, this study examined how frequently teachers used linguistic strategies designed to promote rich teacher-child conversations in preschool classrooms during the summer months. The participants were six teachers from three preschool centers in a Northeastern state of the United States. These centers served children (ages 3-5) from low- and middle-income backgrounds. Teacher-child conversations were video-recorded in each of the three classroom contexts: mealtimes, free play, and group time, on three different days. An interval-based coding system was adopted to code the frequency of eight linguistic strategies. Findings indicated that teachers used most of the linguistic strategies infrequently, particularly those designed to foster rich teacher-child conversations, such as asking wh-questions and using language modeling strategies (e.g., “expand” and “extend”). Notably, the linguistic strategies were used at comparable frequencies across classroom contexts, whereas their frequencies varied across teachers. These findings have important implications for professional development aimed at enhancing teachers' use of language-promoting strategies.
This study explores the role of early childhood teachers’ beliefs in shaping inclusive practices for autistic children within Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. While national frameworks such as the Early Years Learning Framework (AGDE, 2022) and the National Guidelines: Best Practice in Early Childhood Intervention (Reimagine Australia, 2024) emphasise specific practices or ‘best practice’ as the foundation for inclusion, the lived experiences of many autistic children suggest a persistent and concerning gap between policy and practice. Drawing on a qualitative case study of five degree-qualified early childhood teachers identified for their strong commitment to inclusion, this research investigated the underlying beliefs guiding their pedagogies. Semi-structured interviews revealed several interrelated themes concerning inclusive pedagogy in ECEC. The findings suggest that authentic inclusion may be more effectively facilitated through a shift in discourse, from “best practice” to “best beliefs”, where educators’ core philosophies, rather than prescriptive techniques, drive inclusive pedagogy. This paradigm shift invites a re-evaluation of how inclusion for autistic children is conceptualised, enacted, and supported across ECEC contexts.
This autoethnography explores the complexities of co-constructing a culturally sustaining family-school partnership from the perspective of a multilingual, immigrant father. Drawing on reflexive journaling over one kindergarten year, the study investigates how a father negotiates cultural and linguistic tensions to build a developmental bridge between home and school. The narrative unfolds through four analytically selected, evocative vignettes. They trace a trajectory from an initial moment of systemic erasure via a standardized form to the development of an equitable, collaborative relationship. The thematic analysis reveals three key themes: the proactive negotiation of a child’s identity, the co-construction of culturally sustaining classroom practices, and the transformative power of relational trust. This article contributes the underrepresented perspective of an immigrant father to the family engagement literature. By offering an asset-based account, it illuminates the daily relational work and power-sharing required to sustain the whole child.
Early writing development involves more than acquiring transcriptional skills; it is closely bound up with the emergence of children's identities as writers and their beliefs in their own capacity to write. Drawing on sociocultural theory and social cognitive theory, this study examined how young children construct writing self-efficacy and writer identity in relation to how parents and educators define and recognize early writing. A convergent mixed-methods design was used to triangulate data from 245 four-year-old children, 87 educators, and 156 parents in public preschool settings in Greece. Semi-structured interviews with children, supported by visual prompts depicting five developmental writing stages (drawing, scribbling, letter strings, invented spelling, and conventional spelling), were paired with parallel educator and parent surveys assessing recognition of, and rationales for, writing at each stage. Descriptive quantitative analysis was used to identify patterns of recognition across developmental stages, and qualitative content analysis was used to explore the rationales underlying these recognition patterns. Findings revealed a developmentally progressive convergence between children's self-perceptions and adults' recognition of their writing: agreement with educators was strongest at the earliest stages (drawing and scribbling), whereas agreement with parents emerged mainly at more conventional stages, with the highest convergence found for invented and conventional spelling. Children's self-identification as writers was strongest when their earliest writing attempts were validated by educators and the broader social environment. These findings suggest that writer identity and self-efficacy in early childhood are shaped not only by children's own developing skills but by the extent to which the adults around them recognize early, non-conventional marks as legitimate writing, underscoring the need for greater alignment between home and school conceptions of what counts as writing.
Research suggests that preschool children who come into kindergarten with foundational skills in reading and writing have a literacy advantage. Unfortunately, there are few opportunities in the preschool classroom where early writing occurs. Therefore, this study employed a design-based research method to aid parents in supporting their preschoolers’ early writing while using a researcher-designed Writing Notebook. The sample, which was selected using a convenience sampling technique, included six parents and their six children from the 3K classroom and five parents and their six children from the 4K classroom in a local child development center in the Southeastern region of the United States. The 3K classroom serves three-year-old children, while the 4K classroom serves four-year-old children. Specifically, this paper addressed two questions: (1) How did parents scaffold instruction to move children from their present stage to increasingly meaningful writing exploration? and (2) What was the association between children’s writing and parental support? Parents considered their child’s literacy level and experiences and made the decision on what strategies will meet their child’s literacy needs. Qualitative analysis of the notebook showed that parents’ scaffolds changed over each cycle, and this allowed for more meaningful writing exploration for children. Furthermore, quantitative analysis showed that the frequency of notebook use, and the strategies used by parents may have supported children’s literacy skills. These results contribute valuable insights to existing literature by shedding light into the value of frequent early writing support, and the types of scaffolds that may support preschool children as their writing develops.
Children’s question-asking during early childhood plays a central role in cognitive development, reflecting children’s natural curiosity about the world. While research on early science learning has focused on informal contexts (e.g., home) where adults play a key role, less is known about children’s own contributions during these interactions, particularly across different science domains. Our study investigated how children aged 4 to 7 years engage in scientific inquiry by comparing the types of questions children asked while reading a life science book and a physical science book. We recorded 93 mother–child dyads reading two science books from the popular Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out-Science series. Transcribed utterances were coded for five types of science questions. Repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed that children asked more science-related questions during the physical science book than the life science book, with explanation- and fact-seeking questions being the most prevalent within both books. Science question-asking increased from ages four to five but stabilized around age six. No average gender differences in question-asking were observed. Bivariate correlations showed that children’s science questions correlated positively with time spent reading and parents’ overall science talk across both books. These findings challenge assumptions that young children are developmentally unready or uninterested in science—especially physical science. By centering on children’s questions, our study highlights everyday experiences, such as shared book reading, can serve as contexts that support children’s engagement in scientific inquiry during early childhood.
Research on the relationship between parents’ phubbing and child problematic screen use (PSU) has predominantly focused on adolescents and tends to consider parents’ phubbing as a single construct, overlooking the potentially differentiated roles of mothers’ and fathers’ phubbing. To address these gaps, this study examined the associations between fathers’ and mothers’ phubbing and child PSU, and the moderating role of father and mothers’ supportive attitude toward child screen use in such associations. A representative sample of 3,290 parents with young children (Mage = 5.3 years old, SD = 1.2) participated in this study. The results indicated that both mothers’ and fathers’ phubbing were positively related to child PSU. Moreover, the relationship between mothers’ phubbing and child PSU was weaker at high levels as compared to low levels of mothers’ supportive attitude toward child screen use. Similarly, the pathway from fathers’ phubbing and child PSU was weaker at high levels as compared to low levels of fathers’ supportive attitude toward child screen use. No crossover effects involving mothers’ and fathers’ attitude were observed. The findings provide support for the important role of parents’ phubbing in relation to child PSU within the family context.
Preschool children’s physical activity is closely related to health, motor development, and participation in early learning environments. Yet indoor classroom physical activity remains difficult to assess over extended periods of the school day. This study developed and preliminarily evaluated a classroom video-based approach for assessing preschoolers’ indoor physical activity and explored how the resulting data might inform early childhood practice. Drawing on 14.7 h of classroom video from one kindergarten classroom in China, the analysis included 12 children aged 3 to 5 years. The video was segmented into clips and coded using the Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children–Preschool Version (OSRAC-P), yielding 12,696 child-level activity ratings. Manual coding showed acceptable inter-rater reliability (Cohen’s kappa = 0.72). The OSRAC-P activity ratings were then used to develop and evaluate a dual-stream model that combined pose, movement, and status features. The model outperformed a comparison baseline and achieved 75.67
