Infant Educators' Reported Conceptions of, and Approaches to, Infant Language Development: How do They Relate to Educator Qualification Level?
View/ Open
File version
Accepted Manuscript (AM)
Author(s)
Han, Feifei
Degotardi, Sheila
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2020
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This study examined infant educators’ conceptions of infant language development and approaches to supporting the development. The phenomenographic analyses of interviews with 59 educators identified five and six hierarchically related conceptions and approaches respectively. The conceptions were broadly distinguished as deep or surface conceptions; and the approaches were categorized as infant-centred or infant-peripheral approaches. Positive relation was found between the deep conceptions and the infant-centred approaches on the one hand, and positive association was observed between the surface conceptions and the ...
View more >This study examined infant educators’ conceptions of infant language development and approaches to supporting the development. The phenomenographic analyses of interviews with 59 educators identified five and six hierarchically related conceptions and approaches respectively. The conceptions were broadly distinguished as deep or surface conceptions; and the approaches were categorized as infant-centred or infant-peripheral approaches. Positive relation was found between the deep conceptions and the infant-centred approaches on the one hand, and positive association was observed between the surface conceptions and the infant-peripheral approaches on the other hand. The conceptions and approaches were also related to the educators’ level of qualification. Bachelor-qualified educators tended to hold deep conceptions and to report using infant-centred approaches; whereas non-bachelor-qualified educators were more likely to have surface conceptions and to report infant-peripheral approaches. Our findings highlight the importance of the presence of well-qualified educators in supporting language development of very young children in the infant early childhood education and care programs.
View less >
View more >This study examined infant educators’ conceptions of infant language development and approaches to supporting the development. The phenomenographic analyses of interviews with 59 educators identified five and six hierarchically related conceptions and approaches respectively. The conceptions were broadly distinguished as deep or surface conceptions; and the approaches were categorized as infant-centred or infant-peripheral approaches. Positive relation was found between the deep conceptions and the infant-centred approaches on the one hand, and positive association was observed between the surface conceptions and the infant-peripheral approaches on the other hand. The conceptions and approaches were also related to the educators’ level of qualification. Bachelor-qualified educators tended to hold deep conceptions and to report using infant-centred approaches; whereas non-bachelor-qualified educators were more likely to have surface conceptions and to report infant-peripheral approaches. Our findings highlight the importance of the presence of well-qualified educators in supporting language development of very young children in the infant early childhood education and care programs.
View less >
Journal Title
Early Childhood Education Journal
Copyright Statement
© 2020 Springer Netherlands. This is an electronic version of an article published in Early Childhood Education Journal, 2020. Early Childhood Education Journal is available online at: http://link.springer.com// with the open URL of your article.
Subject
Education systems
Social Sciences
Education & Educational Research
Educators' conceptions and approaches
Infant language development
Educators' qualification