Norwegian Research on ECEC Quality from 2010 to 2021—A Systematic Scoping Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This scoping review gives an overview of research of the quality of ECEC in Norway the last decade. They set out to explore which quality dimensions that has received attention in research, and how the concept of quality is understood and used in research. Further, the authors state will provide knowledge about the purpose and research methods of these studies. The overall aim is to guide researchers and policymakers in highlighting the importance of further research of the quality of ECEC. The study research questions concerns counting different aspects of research on ECEC quality, and to identify the research method used and the quality aspects the studies focus on. Their results show that there is an increase in publications concerning ECEC quality and that most studies are written in English language. The purpose of these publications is often describing aspects of quality and associations between such aspects. The method for selecting papers to review seems reasonable and is well presented. The paper is generally well written and gives an interesting overview of research on ECEC quality in Norway. There are, however, some issues that might strengthen the paper further.

This study set out to identify and analyze empirical studies about ECEC quality in Norway. The research questions focus on counting and describing, and the analyses corresponds to this. It seems it would be possible to dig a little deeper to get a better overview of the empirical studies about ECEC in Norway the last decade. It would, for example, be interesting to see some temporal trends. Is the increase in publications mainly within the quantitative domain? This is not unlikely since several large studies on ECEC quality in Norway started collecting data in the beginning of this period and data became available later. Another interesting time trend could be type of quality assessed. Since the second research aim concerns how the concept of quality is understood and used in research, I would also suggest a crosstabulation between type of quality and data collection method. Such crosstabulation would also add some more depth to the discussion of this paper.

The introduction of the paper is a bit thin, and I would suggest presenting some of the studies discussed in the discussion section in more detail in the introduction to the paper. The introduction has room for guiding the reader into some expectations or hypotheses for the research questions. For example, presenting the findings of studies such as Furnes and Solberg & Wendt could inform some expected results of this review.

The materials and methods are presented in an orderly manner. The results are presented with illustrative figures. I would prefer if all figures were presented with number of studies on either the y- or the x-axis (probably better to use the x-axis because of the high number of categories on some of the outcomes), but this is just a minor detail. Otherwise, the figures are well presented.

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our paper. We greatly apriciate the effort you have put into reading and commenting on our paper, and are certain that the contibution strengthen the quality of our article. See further comments in attached Pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

Thank you for the opportunity to review this thoroughly researched and clearly written article. I have only a few comments and some grammatical/typo corrections to highlight:

p.2

"An updated overview of research of the quality of ECEC in Norway will, first of all, contribute to a better understanding of which dimensions of the quality concept have received attention and which quality dimensions remain under-researched."

-       I felt the Norwegian commitment to a holistic approach could be considered to a greater degree in the discussion of the findings regarding  'under-researched' areas of quality. For example the varying degrees to which quality dimensions are relevant for the Norwegian ECEC sector, with regard to its holistic approach to early childhood education.

 

p.13

"This may nevertheless be interpreted as a surprising result, since how and whether play and learning activities are consistent with policy documents, especially legislation, and the framework plan, have been widely debated between professionals and researchers from different academic environments. This is mainly related to understanding the shift in Norwegian ECEC from a social pedagogical approach and a holistic perspective on children’s learning towards a greater emphasis on school preparation content, mathematics and language skills (Korsvold & Nygård, 2022).

-          The 'shift' is presented in this text as something that has already occurred, and Norwegian ECEC is presented as now leaning toward "a greater emphasis on school preparation content, mathematics and language skills". Korsvold & Nygård (2022) are pointing to a shift in the government's interest in ECEC as an arena for school preparation, not a completed shift in Norwegian ECEC as a whole.  The difference is subtle but very meaningful, since regulations continue to underline the holistic approach in Norwegian ECEC, despite the debate among academics and professionals as to ideal curriculum content. A school preparatory approach is a growing trend in the government's thinking, but is not mandated through any regulation connected to Norwegian ECEC, quite the opposite. This is not made clear in text as it stands at present.

 

Another question from p. 13:

"Specific requirements are discussed for the children’s learning outcomes, and questions are asked about how the ECEC maps the children’s competences (including language), while more demands are made of the staff’s tasks and obligations and competence. This shift may have served as a catalyst for greater research activity regarding process quality in the Norwegian ECEC."

 

-How/why may have the shift in governmental interest toward learning outcomes acted as a catalyst for more research activity regarding process quality? I am not sure which specific requirements are referred to from Paper 24, but for Paper 19, the suggested 'språknorm' was met with disapproval from the field and was not successfully 'passed' by the government- perhaps interesting to include for context regarding the thematization of quality emphasizing process and relationships.

 

p.13:

"In terms of process quality, most studies relate to staff-child relationships. This is not surprising and is consistent with other findings (Furenes et al., 2021)."

-Why is it not surprising? The interest in relationships is consistent with the established central role of warm and responsive interactions between educators and children as a particularly important factor in high-quality ECEC (sees Sylva et al.2004). I think the reason it is not surprising is important to articulate.

 

p. 14

"Few studies include the quality of outcomes. Those that address the quality of out[1]comes have mainly focused on language. This may be related to the fact that language is strong in the Norwegian tradition"

 

-Isn't the focus on process quality and lack of research on outcomes also related to the fact that the Norwegian kindergarten is by law process-oriented, without specific learning goals,  and thus there is little interest or basis from which to measure outcomes quantitatively? With that in mind, an increase in such studies could inform, but also pose a threat to the process focus and holistic approach to Norwegian ECEC, since a standard 'outcome' in any area could be interpreted as a norm from which the field could seek to improve or measure 'quality' against in the future. This could be helpful if measuring outcomes regarding children's well-being, but problematic if measuring children's factual knowledge outcomes, since a holistic approach demands that such outcomes cannot be viewed or increased independent of play, care and formation.

 

Those were my comments to the paper’s content. This study is making a valuable contribution to the field and will most certainly be widely used and cited. Here are the grammatical/typos I found:

 

p.2 "Concepts such as structural quality, process quality, curriculum quality and outcome quality have previously been discussed (NICHD – Early Child Care Research Network, 2002) and OECD (2022) and have subsequently been used in several contexts, including Norwegian policy documents (St. meld. nr. 41. (2008-2009)) and academic literature (e.g. Joner et al., 2022; Lekhal et al., 2016)."

 

 

 

p.9: missing a verb or repetition: "Figure 8. Proportion of studies addressing the four quality dimensions (opportunity for multiple responses)"

 

p.11 Inconsistent use of capital letters:

"Management competence, Food servings and daily routines."

AND

"Findings reveal that pedagogical practices (17) are reported as the most studied aspect of curriculum quality. Furthermore, subject areas (9) are the second most reported aspects. Others are reported in 7 studies and report on such aspects as Universal design, User satisfaction and School readiness

 

p.13 "The importance or relevance of physical environment, tied to ECEC quality, can be correlated to how Norwegian ECEC seek to integrate education and care to provide holistic child development (Taguma et al.,2013), in line with holistic learning perspective were play, care and learning are seen as intertwined and not isolated from each other (Johansson,2020; Ringmose & Kragh-Müller,2017).

SHOULD READ:

(...)in line with a holistic learning perspective where play, care and learning are seen as intertwined and not isolated from each other (Johansson,2020; Ringmose & Kragh-Müller,2017).

 

p.14: . (Aslanian, 2019) argues that this took place without the practice field’s awareness, and even with this change, the con[1]cept of care was strongly present in education.

SHOULD READ

Aslanian (2019) argues....

 

p. 14 REPEATED SENTENCES:

It may also be the case that political guidelines and policy documents influence research of quality in ECEC. For example, the White Paper (19; 2015-2016) Time for Play and Learning devotes considerable space to the importance of language skills and children’s development and learning. It may also be the case that political guidelines and policy documents influence research of quality in ECEC. For example, the White Paper (19; 2015-2016) devotes considerable space to the importance of language skills and children’s development and learning

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for reviewing our paper, we greatly appriciate the effort you put into reading and commenting our work. We are certain that your contribution strengthen the quality of our article. For further comments see attached Pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting and well-written research review, that brings systematic knowledge to the field. 

I have one comment and one recommendation:

My comment concerns the including criteria, desribed on page 2 in comparison with the result presentation in the final section of page 6, especially the sentence highlighted by me in yellow. :
"Slightly more than three quarters of the studies (77%) were published as articles in scientific journals, while 11% were reported as PhD theses and 10% as reports. Only a small proportion of the studies were published in scientific journals." 

Doesn't the highlighted sentence refer to Anthologies rather than Scientific journals?

My recommendation is to take a final round with the Reference list and the list of included studies. There are inconsistencies, although minor, plentyful. 

Author Response

Thank you very much for reviewing our article, we greatly appriciate the effort you put into reading and commenting on our work. We are certain that your contribution strengthen the quality of our article. For further comments on your review see attached Pdf file.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf