A protocol for a three-arm cluster randomized controlled superiority trial investigating the effects of two pedagogical methodologies in Swedish preschool settings on language and communication, executive functions, auditive selective attention, socioemotional skills and early maths skills

Abstract

BackgroundDuring the preschool years, children develop abilities and skills in areas crucial for later success in life. These abilities include language, executive functions, attention, and socioemotional skills. The pedagogical methods used in preschools hold the potential to enhance these abilities, but our knowledge of which pedagogical practices aid which abilities, and for which children, is limited. The aim of this paper is to describe an intervention study designed to evaluate and compare two pedagogical methodologies in terms of their effect on the above-mentioned skills in Swedish preschool children.MethodThe study is a randomized control trial (RCT) where two pedagogical methodologies were tested to evaluate how they enhanced children’s language, executive functions and attention, socioemotional skills, and early maths skills during an intensive 6-week intervention. Eighteen preschools including 28 units and 432 children were enrolled in a municipality close to Stockholm, Sweden. The children were between 4;0 and 6;0 years old and each preschool unit was randomly assigned to either of the interventions or to the control group. Background information on all children was collected via questionnaires completed by parents and preschools. Pre- and post-intervention testing consisted of a test battery including tests on language, executive functions, selective auditive attention, socioemotional skills and early maths skills. The interventions consisted of 6 weeks of intensive practice of either a socioemotional and material learning paradigm (SEMLA), for which group-based activities and interactional structures were the main focus, or an individual, digitally implemented attention and math training paradigm, which also included a set of self-regulation practices (DIL). All preschools were evaluated with the ECERS-3.DiscussionIf this intervention study shows evidence of a difference between group-based learning paradigms and individual training of specific skills in terms of enhancing children’s abilities in fundamental areas like language, executive functions and attention, socioemotional skills and early math, this will have big impact on the preschool agenda in the future. The potential for different pedagogical methodologies to have different impacts on children of different ages and with different backgrounds invites a wider discussion within the field of how to develop a preschool curriculum suited for all children.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40359-018-0239-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…The RCT design required a test battery involving both behavioral and neurophysiological measures, 5 which has been described in full elsewhere (Gerholm et al, 2018). The researchers developing the test battery followed a systematic review of suitable measures within the field of linguistics, cognitive, and socio-emotional psychology as well as mathematics.…”

“…At each preschool unit the same assistant was responsible for pre-and post-tests, as a result of the communication with and request from the educators. This assistant would also perform the randomized fidelity-filming in each unit, even though there was a risk that this might inflict on the quality of our research-design in regard to blindness (Gerholm et al, 2018).…”

“…As described in a pre-analysis report (Gerholm et al, 2018), the 28 preschool units were randomized to either of the two interventions or to become a control-unit, thus comprising 10 control units with 136 children, 8 SEMLA units with 150 children, and 10 DIL units with 146 children. All children were pre-and post-tested with a test battery including measures of language, executive functions, early math skills, and emotional understanding.…”