Perlman Michal, Fletcher Brooke, Falenchuk Olesya, Brunsek Ashley, McMullen Evelyn, Shah Prakesh S
Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto/OISE, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Gastroenterology, Alberta Children's Hospital, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
PLoS One. 2017 Jan 19;12(1):e0170256. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0170256. eCollection 2017.
Child-staff ratios are a key quality indicator in early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs. Better ratios are believed to improve child outcomes by increasing opportunities for individual interactions and educational instruction from staff. The purpose of this systematic review, and where possible, meta-analysis, was to evaluate the association between child-staff ratios in preschool ECEC programs and children's outcomes. Searches of Medline, PsycINFO, ERIC, websites of large datasets and reference sections of all retrieved articles were conducted up to July 3, 2015. Cross-sectional or longitudinal studies that evaluated the relationship between child-staff ratios in ECEC classrooms serving preschool aged children and child outcomes were independently identified by two reviewers. Data were independently extracted from included studies by two raters and differences between raters were resolved by consensus. Searches revealed 29 eligible studies (31 samples). Child-staff ratios ranged from 5 to 14.5 preschool-aged children per adult with a mean of 8.65. All 29 studies were included in the systematic review. However, the only meta-analysis that could be conducted was based on three studies that explored associations between ratios and children's receptive language. Results of this meta-analysis were not significant. Results of the qualitative systematic review revealed few significant relationships between child-staff ratios and child outcomes construed broadly. Thus, the available literature reveal few, if any, relationships between child-staff ratios in preschool ECEC programs and children's developmental outcomes. Substantial heterogeneity in the assessment of ratios, outcomes measured, and statistics used to capture associations limited quantitative synthesis. Other methodological limitations of the research integrated in this synthesis are discussed.
儿童与工作人员的比例是幼儿教育与保育（ECEC）项目中的一项关键质量指标。人们认为，更好的比例可通过增加儿童与工作人员进行个体互动和接受教育指导的机会来改善儿童的发展结果。本系统评价以及在可能情况下进行的荟萃分析的目的是评估学前ECEC项目中儿童与工作人员的比例与儿童发展结果之间的关联。截至2015年7月3日，我们检索了Medline、PsycINFO、教育资源信息中心（ERIC）、大型数据集网站以及所有检索到文章的参考文献部分。两项评价者独立识别了评估为学龄前儿童服务的ECEC教室中儿童与工作人员的比例与儿童发展结果之间关系的横断面或纵向研究。两名评分者独立从纳入研究中提取数据，评分者之间的差异通过协商解决。检索发现了29项符合条件的研究（31个样本）。儿童与工作人员的比例为每1名成人对应5至14.5名学龄前儿童，平均为8.65。所有29项研究均纳入了系统评价。然而，唯一能够进行的荟萃分析是基于三项探讨比例与儿童接受性语言之间关联的研究。该荟萃分析的结果并不显著。定性系统评价的结果显示，儿童与工作人员的比例与广义上理解的儿童发展结果之间几乎没有显著关系。因此，现有文献显示，学前ECEC项目中儿童与工作人员的比例与儿童发展结果之间几乎没有关系（即便有关系也很少）。在比例评估、所测量的结果以及用于捕捉关联的统计方法方面存在的大量异质性限制了定量综合分析。本文还讨论了本综述中纳入研究的其他方法学局限性。
