Swedish preschool teachers’ ideas of the ideal preschool group

The purpose of this study is to examine preschool teachers' perception of the ideal number of children in a group (child-group size) in preschool.

Overall, the authors find that preschool teachers find it difficult to determine the ideal group size, as the ideal number of children in a group depends on many different aspects and is therefore too difficult to determine.

The study identifies four thematic categories arising from the preschool teachers' responses about the ideal group size:

1. Balance in the group. Balance between the children's gender, age, ethnicity and social background. According to the preschool teachers, age-homogeneity and an equal number of girls and boys in the group create greater harmony and better balance. Girls and boys prefer different games, and this creates a good framework for the children to feel safe. The fact that both girls and boys thrive in the group is given high priority by the preschool teachers. When there is a significant diversity in the children's age, the children become harder to handle, and having children in the group at different stages in their maturation and development process makes it more difficult for the preschool teachers to practice one educational theory and practice that can include all the children.

2. Smaller groups. Despite great variation in the preschool teachers' current group sizes, all teachers in the study state that they want smaller group sizes.

3. Competences of preschool teachers. The preschool teachers believe that if they are competent enough, they can handle any group size.

4. Preschool environment. The physical framework of the preschool must be able to accommodate the children.

The data material consists of a questionnaire completed by 698 preschool teachers. The questionnaire primarily comprised open-ended questions about the teachers' perception of the ideal child-group size in preschool.

Samuelsson, I. P., Williams, P., Sheridan, S., & Hellman, A. (2016). Swedish preschool teachers’ ideas of the ideal preschool group. Journal of Early Childhood Research 14(4), 444–460.