Improving Teacher-Child Interactions in Early Childhood Classrooms in Chile: Lessons Learned

• In Event: Professional Development for Early Childhood Educators in Latin America: Three Experiences Across the Continent

Abstract

Quality of teacher-child interactions systematically and consistently predicts children’s social, behavioral, emotional and academic development (LoCasale-Crouch et al. 2016). Growing international evidence suggests that intensive professional development supports that directly target improvements in teacher-child interactions can be effective (Bierman, Nix, Greenberg, Blair, & Domitrovich, 2008; Eyberg et al., 2008; Pianta, Mashburn, Downer, Hamre, & Justice, 2008; Raver et al., 2008; Zaslow et al., 2010). However, specific components of interventions and mechanisms through which teacher-child interactions improve in different contexts, are still to be examined. In Chile, the program Un Buen Comienzo (A Good Start; UBC) provided evidence from a cluster-randomized trial in 64 schools (1,876 children) (Yoshikawa et al. 2015), finding moderate to large positive effects on teacher-child interactions after two years. Nevertheless, no significant program impacts on child outcomes were detected at the posttest. The authors observed that one of the main reasons for these findings was the chronic absenteeism in Chilean preschool (Arbour et al., 2016).
The purpose of this study was to test a version of the professional development program (UBC) that embraced the problem of absenteeism and use of instructional time, while focusing on creating local school capacity to improve teacher-child interaction, and to examine teacher characteristics that relate to improvements in quality of interactions. The intervention was conducted in 40 schools from two regions of Chile, during the years 2019 and 2020, and included 54 “classroom teams” formed by an educator and an assistant. The classroom teams were to be evaluated in three moments through the classroom observation instruments CLASS and Stallings, in addition to the application of two questionnaires: Teaching Beliefs and Teaching Trajectories. However, in October 2019, during the month of the second data collection, Chile went through a socio-political revolt that resulted in the closure of schools for a couple of weeks and that difficulted the possibilities of filming in the classrooms, which reduced the sample to 39 classroom team. Then, on march 2020 the Covid-19 pandemic caused the closure of schools, which put an early ending to the study.
Data from both times of assessments was analyzed, descriptive and inferential analyses are reported and discussed, in the light of the particular context experienced at the time of the study.
In short, regarding teacher-child interactions, results showed a statistically significant increase in, Classroom Organization and Emotional Support domains of CLASS, between both assessments, but no increase in Pedagogical Support. Regarding the use of instructional time, contrary to the researcher’s expectations it decreased on average by 6%. Regarding teacher characteristics, it was observed that, younger age, less experience in school, and less teaching experience was related to more increases in teacher-child interaction quality. A more detailed analysis of findings will be discussed at the symposium.
This study presents an interesting contribution to the field as it explores the relation between teacher-child interactions, use of instructional time, and teacher characteristics, at a particularly challenging social and political time.

Authors

• Carolina Melo-Hurtado, Universidad de los Andes

• Marcela Marzolo

• Constanza Ayala