Professional Development and Its Impact on Children in Early Childhood Education and Care: A Meta-Analysis Based on European Studies

Abstract

Short summary: This study reviews the European evidence on the impact of professional development (PD) of pre-school educators on child outcomes. A meta-analysis is used to investigate how PD of pre-school educators affects child outcomes. The studies included in the meta-analysis all concern PD in formal pre-school centers in Europe, and focus is on effects directly on child outcomes. Thus, potential effects of PD on the pre-school educators' skills, beliefs, attitudes and work conditions are not investigated. The geographical restriction excludes the wide range of studies from the US, but these studies still form the base for comparison of the estimated effect sizes. The range of relevant European studies is quite small, but despite the small number of studies included, our results show a significantly positive effect of PD on child outcomes. We find an overall effect size of 0.35 (with a 95 % confidence interval from 0.20 to 0.51).

Does professional development of preschool teachers improve children's socio-emotional outcomes?

“…Results from a meta-analysis focusing on European PD interventions point in the direction of positive short-run effects on child outcomes (Jensen and Rasmussen, 2016), i.e. confirming the positive results found in US interventions.…”

Innovative approaches to continuous professional development (CPD) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Europe: Findings from a comparative review

“…To begin with, the notion of impact and effectiveness of CPD is still largely mysterious. There is a current lack of research and findings that shed light on which specific elements of CPD, for example, content, processes and embeddedness, that influence ECEC quality, educators’ effectiveness and child outcomes, despite there being reports of overall positive effects (Bove et al, ; Jensen & Rasmussen, ; Jensen & Iannone, ; Karwowska‐Struczyk, Wyslowska, & Wichrowsha, ). Even where research has identified certain approaches as effective (Giudici & Castagnetti, ; Jensen & Rasmussen, ; Jensen & Iannone, ), no evidence is provided on their effectiveness in relation to one another (Jensen, Iannone, Christy, & Rolls, , p. 18) and only a few studies examine communities of practice in relation to impact.…”

“…This article analyses innovative approaches to in‐service continuous professional development (CPD) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) strategies, conducted as part of the CARE Project (http://www.ecec-care.org) and published in its reports by Jensen and Iannone (), Jensen and Rasmussen (), Bove, Mantovani, Jensen, Karwowska‐Struczyk, and Wysłowska (2016) and Jensen and Iannone (). The Project's overall aim was to address the question: ‘How can the findings contribute to future policy, practice and research developments and thereby to the field by highlighting the challenges that European ECEC systems face in today's societies and how can these challenges be met through an improved professional development ECEC system?’ In this article, we focus on one part of the research that analyses the extent to which innovative approaches to ECEC systems are being developed in European countries.…”

“…However, this can be defined in terms of the impact of change on practices, systems and culture (Jensen & Iannone, , pp. 6–7), quality of ECEC (structural or processual) (Slot, Leseman, Verhagen, & Mulder, ) and children's social and cognitive outcomes (Jensen & Rasmussen, ). In some research settings and policies, the interest for effectiveness and evidence‐based practices has almost overshadowed other criteria for good practices, such as improving everyday child well‐being and democratic processes in ECEC.…”

A systematic review of the evidence base for professional learning in early years education (The PLEYE Review)

“…There is, then, relatively limited empirical or theoretical work, which attempts to understand the processes that support PDL in EY settings, that can bring about sustainable change in practice and impact positively on children's outcomes, despite the emphasis placed on this in a context of rapid global expansion of EY provision and an explicit focus on ‘school readiness’ (Rao et al ., ; Yoshikawa et al ., ; DfE, ). There are also challenges in identifying the efficacy of PDL programmes, not least because it is difficult to isolate the multiple variables that comprise a PDL programme to demonstrate causal links between improvements in EYE practice and outcomes for children, a point noted in two international reviews of PDL in preschool (Zaslow et al ., ; Jensen & Ranmussen, ). In the UK, specifically a number of high profile reviews of evidence on the impact and efficacy of professional learning in schools and 5–18 education have been conducted recently (see, e.g.…”