Newsletter No.9 A Research Project Funded by the Australian Research Council and the NSW Department of Community Services [Type sidebar content.

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1 1 Newsletter No.9 A Research Project Funded by the Australian Research Council and the NSW Department of Community Services [Type sidebar content. A In this Edition 1 Research Progress 1 Staff Update 2 Research Report For DoCS 5 Abstracts of papers 6 Project Information 8 Research Progress This is the final newsletter of the Child Care Choices project. After six years of data collection and eight years of work including planning and applications for research funding, we have submitted our final reports to the Australian Research Council and to the Department of Community Services (DoCS). Once the report to DoCS has been approved for release, the full report and a summary report will be available on the Child Care Choices website at and on the DoCS website at We hope that this major Australian report on child care and school transition will be used by policy makers and researchers and will also be of interest to families as they make decisions about the care and education of their young children in the early years of life. Over the next few years we intend to continue to analyse the information more fully and also to make available to other social researchers the de-identified data set so that the best use can be made of the valuable information that you have provided. Without your kind cooperation in the study, this project could not have been completed. Thank you for considering this research worthy of your participation and for your willingness to share with us details of yourselves, your family and the child care and school experiences. Altogether, the study involved 766 families, 135 child care centres, 29 family day care schemes, and 144 primary schools from across New South Wales. Thank you to all participants: parents, carers, directors, teachers and especially the children. Such a long research project has also seen many changes in the lives of the research team and research assistants involved, including weddings, babies and unfortunately the sudden death of one of the telephone interviewers. Many people have contributed to the research process. The skills, knowledge and research expertise as well as the cooperative spirit shown by all have contributed to the quality of the project. The main players in the project have been the children who joined as preschoolers, toddlers or even babies and who are now all at school. As we have found in the research, their wellbeing, development and achievement in school have been forged through a combination of family support, child care experiences and their own personal characteristics. It is so important that as a society, we support families, child care professionals and teachers in the crucial role they play in shaping the next generation. Jennifer Bowes Research Team Leader

2 Professor Jennifer Bowes (Principal Investigator) Jennifer Bowes has led the Child Care Choices team over the time of the project. She has remained at Macquarie University but changed jobs a few times over the course of the project. For four years she was Head of the Institute of Early Childhood and then she became Director of the Children and Families Research Centre. This year she took on the role of Associate Dean, Research for the new Faculty of Human Sciences. At home, her children are progressively leaving to take on their adult lives. She has a son living in the USA, a daughter in Canberra and another son still at home, a student at a rival university. She tries to stay sane by going for a swim at the beach on weekends and doing Tai Chi. She is also a member of the Sydney Swans and enjoys being in a football crowd if not necessarily following the game. 2 Child Care Choices - Staff Update Associate Professor Linda Harrison (Principal Investigator) Linda Harrison, Principal Investigator based at Charles Sturt University, was promoted to Associate Professor of Early Childhood in the sixth year of the Child Care Choices study. Here she is, doing her favourite thing, in the sandpit observing the toddlers at one of the centres that supported the project right from the very beginning - way back in Alan Taylor (Statistician) Rachael Hutchesson (Rural Project Manager) Rachael remains working at Charles Sturt University as a casual lecturer/ researcher while studying fulltime for her PhD working with young people considered at risk, youth centres, multimedia and identity. Her son who often came on CCC visits with her is now in Year 10. Rachael is sad to see the project end as she has been observing and playing games with all the children involved from the very beginning. Alan is now working part-time for the Department of Psychology at Macquarie University, and doing other statistical consulting on a casual basis. His daughter Beth was married to Jeff in September Here he is with the happy couple and his wife Sue. He claims that some of the grey hair visible in this photo is attributable to his involvement with the Child Care Choices project, but he looks back on his time with CCC with great fondness, and hopes to continue his association for some time to come. Cathy Stirling (Urban Project Manager) Cathy Stirling worker with the CCC project for the final two waves based at Macquarie University and collected the urban data from teachers and children. Cathy has recently moved into her new position at the Department of Community Services to work on the evaluation of the Brighter Futures Program that is being conducted by SPRC at the University of NSW.

3 3 Child Care Choices - Staff Update Kelly Tribolet (Research Assistant) Wow how time flies! Some years ago, I was involved in the CCC project as a research assistant in the Bathurst area. In this role, I was required to collect data where I had the pleasure of meeting lots of children and following their progress from child care to school. This year, my son Jack has started the big school journey himself and I thank all of those children for allowing me to see that it wasn t so scary! I have also had an addition to the family Cooper who is now nearly three and already wanting to join his big brother at school. On the job front, I am working as a lecturer at Charles Sturt University in the early childhood teaching degree I really enjoy it but I do miss working with children. I guess you can t have everything! Dr Elizabeth Murray (Research Assistant) Libbey Murray is working at Charles Sturt University s Dubbo campus as a lecturer in Early Childhood and Primary Education. She enjoyed her involvement with the Child Care Choices project over the last 5 years, especially collecting data on quality education in early education settings. Libbey graduated with her PhD in March 2008 (with a focus on early school adjustment), and is currently on maternity leave for her first child. Libbey looks forward to continuing to work with the great people who make up the Child Care Choices research team in the future. Marianne Fenech (Investigating Quality) Marianne is involved in a related study that builds on centres involvement in the Child Care Choices project. This new study, called Investigating Quality, will provide important information to help policy-makers and service providers understand how high quality child care is achieved and sustained. The research is being conducted by a team of researchers from Charles Sturt University and Macquarie University. It has been funded by the Australian Research Council, and is supported by the National Childcare Accreditation Council (NCAC) and the Department of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). 76 centres from the Child Care Choices project have agreed to participate in the project.

4 4 Child Care Choices - Staff Update Lihua Chen (Statistician) Lihua has been involved in the project for a number of years now and continues to engage in statistical work, cleaning and merging the data set (which is huge now after all these years of collecting data), in preparation for complex statistical data analyses. Lihua works with Alan, and Naomi to analyse the data to use in the conference papers and publications that will come out of this longitudinal project. Naomi Sweller (Statistician) Naomi joined the project in 2008, when she started at the Children and Families Research Centre as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and continues to work with the project. Her role is that of statistician and her job is to collate and analyse the data. In addition to her statistical work, she carries out her own research into concept learning with children with Autism. Dr Catherine Neilson Some familiar faces of people who have been part of the Child Care Choices Project from the beginning some moved on before we finished Dr Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett is Lecturer, Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University. Her research and publications are in children's peer relations and adjustment to school. Cathrine has been onboard the project since our first wave of CCC children entered school. In between her research, publications and work on the CCC project Cathrine has had two children of her own. Cathrine continues to work with the dataset from our project looking particularly at children s experiences of transition to school.

5 5 CCC Research Report for Department of Community Services The report presents the findings of the Child Care Choices Longitudinal Extension study, a study of the child care and early school experiences of children in urban and rural New South Wales. Its focus is on elements of children s child care experience and the extent to which they predict children s adjustment and achievement in the year before they start school and the first year at school. In predicting child outcomes, the study took a social ecological approach and included characteristics of the children themselves, their families, as well as their overall child care history in seeking to explain differences in children s social-emotional competencies and difficulties, relationships with teachers and peers, feelings about school, approaches to learning, and achievements in early literacy and numeracy across the years before and after entry to formal schooling. The report is based on information from six years of a longitudinal study of an initial 766 children and families recruited from long day care centres and family day care schemes in urban and rural New South Wales. There were approximately equal numbers of urban and rural families and girls and boys. At the time of recruitment in 2002, the age of the children ranged from 4 months to 4 years 2 months, with a mean age of 2 years 1 month. The final sample in Wave 6 comprised 348 families. The key research questions were: o o What are the predictive effects of child and family characteristics, early child care experiences, early development, child care/preschool experiences in the year before school, transition to school experiences, family support for learning at home and at school, and classroom quality on achievement and adjustment in the first year of school? What are the child, family, early learning, and child care/preschool factors that combine to best predict children s achievement and adjustment in the year prior to school entry and the first year at school? Information was collected from a variety of sources: primary caregivers (generally the mother, but in some cases fathers or grandparents), carers and teachers in child care and preschool, teachers in schools and the children themselves. Parents were contacted annually for a telephone interview about their child, their family, and the child care arrangements they had made. In the first year of the study parents also completed a questionnaire. Each year, the carer or teacher of the study child was asked to complete a questionnaire on the child and the directors of long day care, preschools or family day care schemes were asked to complete a questionnaire about their service. At the same time, a member of the research team visited the child s main child care setting, preschool, or school for each child to collect observational data about the education/care environment and to assess children s development. Once children started school, the research assistants also interviewed the study child during the visit. From Child Care to School: Influences on Children s Adjustment and Achievement in the Year before School and the First Year of School Findings from the Child Care Choices Longitudinal Extension Study Research Report to the NSW Department of Community Services May 2009 Prepared by Jennifer Bowes, Linda Harrison, Naomi Sweller, Alan Taylor and Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett Children and Families Research Centre, Macquarie University and School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University Results of the study will be available when released by the NSW Department of Community Services. Jennifer Bowes 16 March 2009

6 6 Abstracts Does early exposure to common communicable illnesses in child care have a lasting effect on child health? Jennifer Bowes, Linda Harrison, Alan Taylor and Sarah Wise at the 20 th Biannual Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development in Wurzberg, Germany, July 2008 In this conference presentation, we discussed longitudinal data from four waves of the Child Care Choices (CCC) study to examine three alternate hypotheses about children s early exposure to common colds and infections in childcare: (1) that early exposure has a protective effect on child health and reduces rates of infection as children get older; (2) that early exposure weakens the immune system and increases rates of infection as children get older; and (3) that there is no relationship between early exposure and later rates of infection. Our analyses also tested for the possible effects of child age and type of childcare. The CCC sample was recruited in regulated childcare centres or family day care homes when children were between 0.50 and 4.25 years of age. Annual interviews with the parent provided an ongoing record of the type(s) of care attended. Parents also provided information about their child s health, specifically, the occurrence of upper respiratory or gastrointestinal infections over the past year. A dataset was extracted from the larger CCC study to comprise all children (n = 268) with a complete record of health outcomes. Results showed that (1) rates of infection were highest for under-2-year-olds and lowest for children aged 3 years and over; (2) infections did not vary with type of childcare; (3) the probability of having an infection at an older age was higher for children who had had an early experience of an infection than for those who had not. An Evaluation of Child Care Factors in Young Children s Social-Emotional Development Judy Ungerer, Linda Harrison, Alan Taylor, Jennifer Bowes, Sarah Wise, Ben Edwards, Tracey Simpson, and Ann Sanson, at the 19 th Biannual Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development in Melbourne, July The Child Care Choices Study is a 3-year longitudinal study of child care influences on children s social-emotional, cognitive, and behavioural development. This paper focused on the 345 children living in urban and regional locations who were between 1 and 3 years of age at the commencement of the study and who had centre-based care as one of their childcare arrangements at the time of enrolment. This abstract summarizes findings from the first wave of assessment. Family background and child care history data were collected via telephone interview with the child s primary caregiver (in most cases the mother), and data on the child-parent attachment relationship and children s peer interaction skills were obtained via parent report questionnaire. Child care centre staff also provided ratings of children s peer interaction skills. Analyses assessing child care effects controlled for SES, child gender and age, maternal adjustment, social support, and family functioning influences. Quality and changeability of child care were not related to any measures of children s social-emotional functioning. However, type of care (i.e., centre-based care in combination with care by a grandparent) was associated with more positive child-parent relationships, and a higher number of hours in care was associated with more positive peer interaction skills. Further analyses will evaluate child care influences relative to outcomes at the 12-month follow-up, and will evaluate effect sizes for child care variables relative to other predictors in the model.

7 7 Abstracts Exploring the reasons why some children hate their first year of school Cathy Stirling & Rachael Hutchesson at the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference in Brisbane 2009 Research indicates that children who have a successful and positive transition to their first year of school are well prepared for a trajectory of continuing school success (Hamre & Pianta, 2001) and likewise, those whose early school experiences are not successful are at risk for continuing difficulties at school. This paper examines the factors that contribute to children having a negative outlook on school. There were two groups coming out of the data. Group one comprised the 20% of the children who had a low level of liking school. Group two included the remaining 80% of children who had a moderate to high level of school liking. Analyses confirmed that the two groups differed significantly on teachers' ratings of school adjustment. Children who were more negative about school were rated as less well adjusted by the classroom teacher. Longitudinal data were also drawn on to investigate potential precursors to a poor attitude to school. These included ratings of obtained from parents and teachers during the year prior to entering school. Preschool/child care teachers' ratings showed that the group of children who disliked kindergarten were less well adjusted, in some aspects of their learning, than the rest of the children. Comparisons showed that children who disliked school at kindergarten were rated by their parents as being less ready to learn and less ready socially than other children, but did not differ from others on emotional readiness or on advice from teachers that the child was ready. Additional analyses will further explore the reasons for children's negativity by testing the effects of child gender, temperament, cognitive ability, and age of starting school as potential predictors. Discussion will focus on the application of these findings for parents and teachers in prior-to-school settings who need to identify children who may be at risk of an unsuccessful transition to school. Child care influences on children s adjustment and achievement in the first year of school Jennifer Bowes, Linda Harrison, Alan Taylor, Naomi Sweller and Catherine Neilsen-Hewett, Institute of Early Childhood paper presented at the Social Policy Research Conference, Sydney July 2009 Child Care Choices (CCC) is a study of the child care and early school experiences of children in urban and rural Australia. It focuses on factors that explain differences in children s socialemotional strengths and difficulties, relationships with teachers and peers, feelings about school, learning skills, and achievements in literacy and numeracy in the first year of school. CCC used multiple respondents (parents, teachers, children, research assistants) and mixed methods (questionnaires, interviews, observations, assessments) over six annual waves of data collection. Results for 12 outcomes at school-age are presented, based on regression analyses using multiple imputation datasets containing 344 cases. Child care experiences as toddlers and preschoolers were found to be important predictors of outcomes at school-age. Longer hours and more multiple or changeable care arrangements were associated with poorer adjustment. Poorer socio-emotional and relationship outcomes were predicted by behaviour problems, negative social interaction towards peers, and less positive relationships with carers during earlier development and child care experience. The paper concludes that early school success is supported by the relationships children form with others and the learning opportunities they experience in good quality child care, but diminished by extensive amounts or instability of care.

8 Some key facts about the Child Care Choices Study: 8 Number of Children and Families: 766 (355-Urban, 322-Rural) Number of Child Care Centres and preschools: 135 (89-Urban, 46-Rural) The Child care Choices Longitudinal Research Project Number of Family Day Care Services: 29 (12-Urban, 17-Rural) Number of schools: 144 (94 Urban, 50-Rural) This unique 7 year study would not have been possible without the support and cooperation of staff and management in a large number of child care centres, family day care services, preschools and schools. Thanks to all the wonderful staff members at each setting who allowed us to come into their rooms to observe. A special thanks to all the fabulous parents who spent time on long phone interviews each year for us and the BIGGEST THANKS TO ALL the incredible children who had fun playing games with our research assistants. The Child Care Choices research project was established in 2002 to examine children s changing development in child care and was extended in 2004 to include their adjustment during the early years of school. The project was funded by a 3-year grant from the Australian Research Council and on-going funding from the NSW Department of Children's Services.