Research Findings: Outdoor environments have recently become part of the early childhood quality puzzle, which has long been important to trace relationships between children's experiences in child care and their development. However, fewer studies have analyzed the extent to which the quality of these outdoor spaces relates to young children's…

Child-care researchers agree on the importance of preschool quality as an essential factor in developmental and cognitive outcomes. This study is a first attempt to assess structural and process aspects of Greek private and state preschool settings after the COVID-19 crisis and to provide empirical evidence for efforts to maintain the early…

The aim is to investigate early childhood mathematics in a preschool unit in Sweden. A mixed-method research approach and a case study research design were used. Three preschool staff members and 19 children were enrolled. Data were collected by means of observations and a focus group interview. Numerical and thematic analyses were conducted. The…

This article aims to explore the conditions for children's language and literacy learning in 153 Swedish preschools with children one to five years. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS-3) is used to evaluate preschool quality, focusing on the subscale of Language and literacy activities. The study draws on Bronfenbrenner's…

Background: Preschool is a crucial period for developing motor skills. Objective: This study evaluated factors associated with motor competence in preschoolers from a Brazilian urban area. Methods: A total of 211 preschoolers (51.2% girls and 48.8% boys) were evaluated. Body mass index was calculated; the Brazilian Economic Research Criterion, the…

Within the research field quality in preschool, interactions between staff and children are widely recognised as the single most important factor. Hence, preschool teachers play an important role in underpinning children's well-being, learning and development. However, prior research into preschool teachers' educational level and other…

Dramatic play is a typical activity that provides many benefits for preschool children's learning and development. This paper presents the findings of a mixed-method study that examined the level of preschool children's involvement in dramatic play and the connection between this involvement and the quality of the classroom environment. The study…

The Inclusive Classroom Profile (ICP) is a structured observation instrument. It has been developed to support high-quality early childhood inclusion of children with special educational needs and disabilities. The aim of this study is to examine the cultural validity of the instrument in Swedish preschools and to investigate its perceived…

Many studies have been conducted to identify the factors explaining individual differences in children's emotion understanding (capacity to comprehend the nature, causes and consequences of emotions in the self and others). These studies represent a significant advance in our comprehension of the origins of the child's capacity to understand…

School readiness is often defined as being at an expected developmental level across domains such as social and emotional, language and literacy, math, and science (Office of Head Start, 2015; Washington State Department of Early Learning, 2012; Teaching Strategies, 2001). Suppose children start without the foundation and identity in early science…

Public preschool programs require the use of a research-based, whole-child curriculum, yet limited research examines whether curricula influence classroom experiences and children's development. We use five samples of preschool children to examine differences in classroom processes and children's school readiness by classroom curricular status…

The purpose of the study on which this article rests is to supplement ECERS-3 observations of the learning environment (n = 31) for 3-5-year-old children attending preschool activities in Favrskov Municipality, Denmark. The paper gives an in-depth analysis of characteristic features of high-quality preschool activities within the areas of…

Research Findings: We investigated associations between the characteristics of directors, their practices in supervising educators, and the quality of classrooms in their centers. Directors from 71 randomly selected child care centers (106 classrooms) serving preschool-age children in Toronto, Canada, completed a questionnaire asking about their…

The aim of the current study was to evaluate the relation of early childhood education global quality with children outcomes in the Greek early childhood education settings. Quality was assessed by the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), whereas the Utrecht Early Math Competence Scale and Concepts About Print Scale were…

Research Findings: The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale--Revised (ECERS-R) is widely used to evaluate the quality of early childhood education and its association with child development. However, the psychometric properties of the ECERS-R are not well established. Consequently, in this study we tested 3 different factor solutions of the…