Early second language learners, staff responsiveness and child engagement in the Swedish preschool context in relation to child behaviour characteristics and staffing.

The study investigates the relationship between kindergarten children's engagement and staff responsiveness and how the child's age, the child's behavioural and emotional problems, the size of the group of children and the relationship between children and staff affect the child's engagement and staff response. Another goal was to investigate whether these relationships differed between children who had Swedish as a second language (L2 children) and children whose mother tongue was Swedish (L1 children).

The study had the following hypotheses which were tested in a two-way model:

1. The relationship between children and staff will have a positive effect on the staff's responsiveness.
2. Group size will have a positive effect on the staff's responsiveness.
3. The responsiveness of the staff and the engagement of children will have a positive effect on each other.
4. Behavioural and emotional problems will have a negative effect on children's engagement and staff responsiveness, respectively.
5. Emotional symptoms will have a negative effect on children's engagement and staff responsiveness, respectively.
6. The child's age has a positive effect on the child's engagement and the staff's responsiveness, respectively.
7. The relationship between the pathways in the model varies based on how the child's age and the staff's responsiveness affect the child's engagement in the two different groups of children.

The results show that when children show interest and engagement in activities, adults are more likely to pay attention and respond to them. However, hyperactive children or children with emotional problems don’t always get as much attention. Older children are often more engaged than younger ones, and this affects how adults respond. When there are many children who do not speak Norwegian well in a group, it may be more difficult for adults to pay attention to everyone.

The data from this study originate from a longitudinal study in Swedish kindergartens. In the longitudinal study, the children were followed for two years, involving three rounds of data collection. Data collection was carried out in 31 kindergartens in one large municipality (>200,000), four medium-sized municipalities (50,000–200,000), and one small municipality (<50,000) and included 611 kindergarten employees and 832 children (424 boys) from six municipalities in Sweden. The age range was between 13 and 71 months. The child's engagement was measured using the Child Engagement Questionnaire. The staff's responsiveness was measured using the survey developed by Granlund and Olsson.

Finnman, J., Danielsson, H., Sjöman, M., Granlund, M., & Almqvist, L. (2021). “Early second language learners, staff responsiveness and child engagement in the Swedish preschool context in relation to child behaviour characteristics and staffing”. I Frontiers in Education (Vol. 6, s. 627581). Frontiers Media SA.