Children’s temperament moderates the long-term effects of pedagogical practices in ECEC on children’s externalising problems.

The study investigates how pedagogical practices in kindergartens, specifically free play and support from kindergarten staff, are related to children's development of externalising behaviour, both at kindergarten age and later in school. The study also explored whether these relationships were influenced by children's emotional temperament.

The results show that free play in kindergarten generally reduced acting-out behaviour in the children. At the same time, children with a greater emotional temperament acted out more at school if they had had a lot of free play in kindergarten. The kindergarten staff's support around these children seems to moderate the effects that free play in kindergarten had on acting-out behaviour in school. The researchers conclude that all the children benefited from free play, but that there is also a danger that a lot of free play in kindergarten can reduce the children's well-being at school, where there is less of this type of play than in kindergarten. They therefore recommend that free play in kindergartens must take place in combination with more support from kindergarten staff.

The data material is taken from the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and consists of questionnaires answered by parents and kindergarten staff on behalf of 7421 children at two measurement points – when the children were five and eight years old.

Wilhelmsen, T., Lekhal, R., Alexandersen, N., Brandlistuen, R. E., & Wang, M. V. (2021). "Children’s temperament moderates the long-term effects of pedagogical practices in ECEC on children’s externalising problems". European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 29(2):206-223.