Clinical trial NCT05559294: Effect of Professional Development in Science
Official title: Effect of Professional Development in Science for Early Childhood Education and Care Staff
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: UNKNOWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Healthy
Keywords: Early childhood education and care
Early childhood educators
Self-efficacy for science
Attitudes toward science
Engagement with science
Professional development
Science capital
Lead sponsor: UCL University College, Denmark
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: VIVE - The Danish Center for Social Science Research
First posted: 2022-09-29
Enrollment: 1400
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 70
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: SEQUENTIAL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: This trial is a randomized controlled trial aimed at assessing the effectiveness of a nine-month-long professional development program to improve early childhood educators' and carers' self-efficacy for science approaches, engagement with science, and attitudes toward science in early childhood education and care (ECEC).

Detailed description: Early childhood education and care (ECEC) staff often struggle in working with science with small children, as the National Strengthened Pedagogical Curriculum (Ministry of Children and Education, 2020) is difficult to put into practice. Thus, they are challenged with regard to meeting the national objectives for this in this regard. A large-scale professional development program is developed and implemented to overcome this gap and to enhance ECEC staff's self-efficacy, engagement with, and attitudes toward science.

The intervention is developed by UCL teaching staff in collaboration with the municipality of Odense with the aim of offering all children in Odense municipality's ECEC program a playful and investigative approach to science as defined in the national curriculum theme 'Nature, outdoor life and natural phenomena' by offering ECEC staff extensive professional development in this field. The professional development course will be delivered by UCL teaching staff from the area of early childhood education and care in two consecutive runs, each of nine months duration.

The professional development consists of a combination of three workshops and three e-learning modules. In between workshops and e-learning modules, the ECEC staff implement the content practically by working with science with the children, while receiving supervision from a teacher from the professional development. The set-up is based on the model of teacher professional growth (Clark \& Hollingsworth, 2002). The aim of the professional development program is that ECEC staff becomes able to construct and enhance science-oriented learning environments, thus providing the children with educative experiences with science (Dewey, 1913). The aim of the trial is to assess the effectiveness of the intervention to improve early childhood educators' and carers' self-efficacy for science approaches, engagement with science, and attitudes toward science in early childhood education.

The study is a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT). A total of approximately 1400 ECEC staff will be randomized to the professional development in the first run or Education and Care as Usual (ECAU). The ECAU group in the first run will receive the intervention in a second run once the first run is completed.

Participants are ECEC staff in pedagogical positions (i.e. pedagogues, assistants, assistant teachers, and daily leaders) employed in a combined nursery and kindergarten in Odense municipality. Participants must be able to fill out questionnaires in Danish.

Data will be collected at baseline (pre-intervention), after 4.5 months (midway), and 9 months after baseline, when the intervention is completed.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Adults employed in a day nursery and/or kindergarten center in the municipality of Odense at the start of the intervention
* Employed in one of four pedagogical positions: pedagogues \[pædagoger\], assistants \[pædagogiske assistenter\], assistant teachers \[pædagogmedhjælpere\], and daily leaders \[dalig leder\]

Exclusion Criteria:

* Employed in other positions than the four above in a day nursery and/or kindergarten center
* "at home child carers" \[dagpleje\]
* Not able to fill out questionnaires in Danish

Primary outcomes:
measure: Change in Self-efficacy for science approach at 4.5 months
timeFrame: Baseline, 4,5 months
measure: Change in Self-efficacy for science approach at 9 months
timeFrame: Baseline, 9 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Science capital for professionals
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Change in Attitudes toward science at 4.5 months
timeFrame: Baseline, 4,5 months
measure: Change in Attitudes toward science at 9 months
timeFrame: Baseline, 9 months
measure: Change in engagement with science in the work life at 4.5 months
timeFrame: Baseline, 4,5 months, 9 months
measure: Change in engagement with science in the work life at 9 months
timeFrame: Baseline, 9 months
measure: Motivation for professional development in science
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: science approach behaviors
timeFrame: 9 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Odense
country: Denmark
facility: UCL university college
Study officials:
affiliation: UCL University college
name: Morten R petersen, PhD
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
References:
citation: Clarke D, Hollingsworth H. Elaborating a model of teacher professional growth. Teaching and teacher education. 2002; 18(8): 947-967.
citation: Dewey J. Interest and effort in education.1913. Boston, MA, US: Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
citation: Francis LJ, Greer JE. Measuring Attitude Towards Science Among Secondary School Students: the affective domain. Research in Science & Technological Education. 1999; 17(2): 219-226.
citation: Kosovich JJ, Hulleman CS, Barron KE, Getty S. A Practical Measure of Student Motivation: Establishing Validity Evidence for the Expectancy-Value-Cost Scale in Middle School. The Journal of Early Adolescence. 2015; 35(5-6):790-816.
citation: Oon P-T, Hu BY, We B. Early childhood educators' attitudes toward science teaching in Chinese schools. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 2019; 44(4): 423-435.