Teachers’ Knowledge and Use of Best Practices During Mealtime and Associations with Children’s Mealtime Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Health, Growth, Injury

Abstract

Early Childhood Education (ECE) teacher practices shape children’s skills and habits during the mealtime (Gubbles et al., 2010; Hughes et al., 2007), however there remains limited understanding of aspects of the ECE mealtime experience. First, there is growing research examining responsive feeding practices during mealtimes to help children establish health eating habits in early years (Dev et al., 2020a; Swindle et al., 2017), yet less attention has been placed on the use of high-quality teaching practices during mealtimes. Drawing connections between teaching and feeding practices can improve professional development and communication efforts for implementing responsive feeding practices while broadening the use of high-quality teaching practices in all classroom routines. Second, much of the current knowledge on children’s eating behavior is based on findings of parental practices in the home. ECE mealtimes have unique characteristics (Tovar et al., 2018) and more research is needed to examine associations between teacher practices and children’s behavior in these settings to strengthen provisions of high-quality care for children during mealtimes and ultimately improve the health and development of children.
Given these research gaps, objectives for this study are to provide a multidisciplinary evaluation of ECE teachers’ knowledge and use of best teaching and feeding practices during mealtime, and to evaluate associations between teacher practices and children’s behavior during mealtime, through the following aims:
1) Examine the relationship between high-quality teaching and responsive feeding practices during the mealtime. We hypothesize positive associations between the teaching and feeding practices. Video observations of preschool classroom lunchtimes will be assessed by the Mealtime Observation in Childcare Checklist (MOCC) (Dev et al., 2020b) and the Classroom Assessment Scoring System – PreK (CLASS-PreK) (Pianta et al., 2008). Correlation analysis examine the relationship between both the MOCC and CLASS-PreK subscales.
2) Examine teacher perspectives, goals, and their perceived roles during mealtime. We hypothesize teachers will express varied knowledge about mealtime practices and challenges during mealtimes that influence their practices. Qualitative analysis from a phenomenological approach will be used to analyze teacher interviews. Level one coding will use provisional codes. Level two and three coding will involve developing categories or themes that represent reoccurring patterns in the data.
3) Examine associations between teacher mealtime practices and children’s behavior at mealtime. We hypothesize positive associations between best practices at mealtimes and children’s display of healthy eating behavior and practicing developmental skills at mealtime. Video observations of lunchtimes will be coded for children’s behavior during mealtime, teacher practices, and teacher-child interactions during mealtime, using a time sampling tool. Analysis will include frequencies of mealtime behaviors from time sampling, correlations of teacher practices and children’s behavior from time sampling, and multilevel analysis of the MOCC subscales and children’s behavior.
All data for this study has been collected. Analysis has begun and will be completed along with results and conclusions no later than March 2021.

Authors

• Adrien Diane Malek-Lasater, University of Oklahoma-Tulsa
  Presenting Author

• Kyong-Ah Kwon, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author

• Dipti Dev, University of Nebraska Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author