Pre-schoolers’ development during the COVID-19 shutdowns – a mixed-methods secondary analysis

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Daniel Mays
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2021 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 470909907

Nurseries in Germany have a legal mandate to support children’s acquisition of basic school skills and competences in preparation for the upcoming transition to primary school. Research underlines this important mandate and shows that early childhood education is crucial to prepare pre-schoolers for transition from nursery to primary school with respect to basic school skills (e.g. language and mathematics), social-emotional and motoric development. Basic school skills as well as social-emotional and motoric development in turn predict future school achievements and school success. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic however, nursery institutions in Germany were shut down for most pre-schoolers from 16th March to 28th May 2020 and again from 16th December 2020 to 1st March 2021 (decisions were made by the federal states). The presented application for a secondary analysis draws on existing data from a practical pedagogical project from the time of the shutdown designed to provide pre-schoolers with educational support during their final nursery year prior to transition and during their first year of school. The first sub-goal of the focus project is to conduct a secondary analysis of existing quantitative (from standardised IDS-2 pre-post-post status diagnostic of N=57 pre-school children) and qualitative interview data on the development of pre-schoolers’ basic school skills, motor skills and social-emotional competences and their own, their parents’ as well as professionals’ perspectives before and after the COVID-19 shutdown. Preliminary findings stress the particular role of nurseries in supporting the transition to school with regard to early childhood education and childhood development. Insights into pre-schoolers’ overall educational, motoric and social-emotional development over the course of the COVID-19 shutdowns and how they coped with the transition into primary school are lacking so far. While many COVID-19 research projects draw on retrospective surveys, the presented secondary analysis will draw on standardised pre- and post-test data from pre-schoolers as well as qualitative interview data. Together, the qualitative and quantitative data serve as a dense and unique data set that seems promising with regard to the questions on how basic school skills, motor skills and the social-emotional competences of pre-schoolers and how children, (nursery) teachers and parents experienced the shutdown of early childhood education institutions? The overall goal is to prepare and submit two double-blind peer review publications and a minimum of two conference presentations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants