”Sammenhenger mellom barnehagekvalitet og barns fungering ved 5 år. Resultater fra Den norske mor og barn-undersøkelsen”.

The purpose of this report is to examine the extent to which quality at Norwegian preschools (”barnehager”), age when starting preschool and the number of hours per week spent at preschool correlate with children's language and social skills at the age of 5. Quality at preschools covers structural factors such as the number of employees, their level of education, the number of children per group, the physical environment indoors and outdoors as well as materialistic resources. Furthermore, quality at preschools covers processual factors such as pedagogical content as well as the amount and nature of interactions. The three specific research questions are: 1) What are the correlations between indicators of structural quality and process quality at preschools? 2) What are the correlations between specific quality indicators and children's development at the age of 5? 3) What are the correlations between type of childcare and children's development at the age of 5?

The results show a statistical correlation between children's language and social skills and the relationship between children and staff. A good relationship between child and staff is associated with better language skills and fewer behavioural problems, and the child is more likely to be better prepared for school.

There are only few and weak correlations between the child's age when starting preschool as well as language and social skills at the age of 5, although there are three exceptions: Boys who start preschool before the age of 18 months have better language skills. Boys also have fewer behavioural problems. Girls who start preschool before the age of 18 months are more likely to be ready for school.

There is no correlation between the number of hours per week at preschool and the children's language skills and social skills. Moreover, all measurements show only minor differences between private and public preschools.

In addition, the study shows only few and relatively weak statistical correlations between quality variables at Norwegian preschools (frameworks and pedagogical content), and how children cope linguistically and psychologically.

The correlation between structural quality indicators (frameworks) and processual quality indicators (pedagogical content) is weak. Thus there is no correlation between quality of frameworks and quality of the pedagogical content. Moreover, the correlations between structural quality and the children's language and social skills are weak. The only structural quality indicators with a statistically significant correlation with the children's language and social skills are staff stability, access to material that supports children's development, and group sizes. Children's language skills are better at preschools with a high degree of staff stability and good access to material that supports children's development, whereas externalised behavioural problems, concentration and adaptation problems occur to a lesser degree. Preschools with large groups of children have fewer children with externalised behavioural problems and concentration problems.

The report builds on data from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), which is a longitudinal population-based cohort study that follows mothers from early pregnancy and as their children grow up. The data basis for this report covers information about 4,037 children from two questionnaire surveys. One questionnaire was sent to a total of 8,478 families, and another about information on the children's preschool was sent to pedagogical managers and heads of department. Language skills were measured using Språk 20 and the Early Development Instrument. Social skills relating to behaviour, concentration and adaptation were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist and Conner's Parent Rating Scale-Revised[TS1] . The correlations between preschool quality as well as language and social skills were analysed using linear regression, logistic regression and generalised linear regression.

[TS1]I den danske tekst, står der ’Revisisted’. Den kan jeg ikke finde i Google, men jeg kan finde denne. OK?

Engvik, M., Evensen, L., Gustavson, K., Jin, F., Johansen, R., Lekhal, R., Schjølberg, S., Wang, M. & Aase, H. (2014). ”Sammenhenger mellom barnehagekvalitet og barns fungering ved 5 år. Resultater fra Den norske mor og barn-undersøkelsen”. Rapport 2014:1, Nydalen: Folkehelseinstituttet.