Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
BMC Psychol. 2018 Jun 19;6(1):29. doi: 10.1186/s40359-018-0239-y.
During the preschool years, children develop abilities and skills in areas crucial for later success in life. These abilities include language, executive functions, attention, and socioemotional skills. The pedagogical methods used in preschools hold the potential to enhance these abilities, but our knowledge of which pedagogical practices aid which abilities, and for which children, is limited. The aim of this paper is to describe an intervention study designed to evaluate and compare two pedagogical methodologies in terms of their effect on the above-mentioned skills in Swedish preschool children.
The study is a randomized control trial (RCT) where two pedagogical methodologies were tested to evaluate how they enhanced children's language, executive functions and attention, socioemotional skills, and early maths skills during an intensive 6-week intervention. Eighteen preschools including 28 units and 432 children were enrolled in a municipality close to Stockholm, Sweden. The children were between 4;0 and 6;0 years old and each preschool unit was randomly assigned to either of the interventions or to the control group. Background information on all children was collected via questionnaires completed by parents and preschools. Pre- and post-intervention testing consisted of a test battery including tests on language, executive functions, selective auditive attention, socioemotional skills and early maths skills. The interventions consisted of 6 weeks of intensive practice of either a socioemotional and material learning paradigm (SEMLA), for which group-based activities and interactional structures were the main focus, or an individual, digitally implemented attention and math training paradigm, which also included a set of self-regulation practices (DIL). All preschools were evaluated with the ECERS-3.
If this intervention study shows evidence of a difference between group-based learning paradigms and individual training of specific skills in terms of enhancing children's abilities in fundamental areas like language, executive functions and attention, socioemotional skills and early math, this will have big impact on the preschool agenda in the future. The potential for different pedagogical methodologies to have different impacts on children of different ages and with different backgrounds invites a wider discussion within the field of how to develop a preschool curriculum suited for all children.
在学龄前阶段，儿童在对其日后生活成功至关重要的领域中发展能力和技能。这些能力包括语言、执行功能、注意力和社会情感技能。幼儿园中使用的教学方法有可能增强这些能力，但我们对于哪种教学实践有助于哪些能力以及对哪些儿童有益的了解有限。本文的目的是描述一项干预研究，旨在评估和比较两种教学方法在瑞典学龄前儿童上述技能方面的效果。
该研究是一项随机对照试验（RCT），测试了两种教学方法，以评估它们如何在为期 6 周的密集干预中增强儿童的语言、执行功能和注意力、社会情感技能和早期数学技能。18 所幼儿园包括 28 个单位和 432 名儿童参加了位于斯德哥尔摩附近的一个市镇。儿童年龄在 4 岁零 6 个月之间，每个幼儿园单位被随机分配到干预组或对照组。所有儿童的背景信息均通过家长和幼儿园完成的问卷收集。干预前和干预后的测试包括一个测试套件，包括语言、执行功能、选择性听觉注意力、社会情感技能和早期数学技能测试。干预措施包括 6 周的密集练习，一种是社会情感和材料学习范式（SEMLA），其重点是小组活动和互动结构，另一种是个体、数字化实施的注意力和数学训练范式（DIL），其中还包括一套自我调节实践。所有幼儿园均使用 ECERS-3 进行评估。
如果这项干预研究表明，在增强儿童在语言、执行功能和注意力、社会情感技能和早期数学等基本领域的能力方面，基于小组的学习范式和特定技能的个体训练之间存在差异，这将对未来的幼儿园议程产生重大影响。不同的教学方法对不同年龄和背景的儿童可能产生不同影响的可能性，邀请了该领域更广泛地讨论如何为所有儿童制定适合的幼儿园课程。
