The Institute of System Projects presents a summary of the XX International Conference on ECERS, which took place at University College of Northern Denmark in Aalborg on May 23-25, 2018.
Every year the international community of researchers who work with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scales (ECERS) meet to share the results of their research, discuss practices of scales application, methods of representing the assessment outcomes, and define perspectives of improving the assessment tools.
This anniversary Conference hosted researchers from the UK, Vietnam, Germany, Denmark, Iran, Canada, China, Nepal, Norway, Portugal, Russia, the US, France, and Sweden. The Institute of System Projects, namely the representatives of the Laboratory of Child Development, participated in the Conference for the second time.
The program of the Conference was much busier than the previous year. Professor Debby Cryer from the Environment Rating Scales Institute (the US) presented a revised Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale (FCCERS-3). A team of researchers headed by Prof. Sonja Sheridan and Prof. Pia Williams from University of Gothenburg shared a brilliant quality analysis of assessing Swedish kindergartens, using the revised ECERS scales.
Another high-profile report was represented by a team of British scientists — Kathy Sylva (Oxford University) and Brenda Taggart (University College London), who have initiated and conducted the famous longitudinal research Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE). More than 3000 children participated in the research that lasted for 17 years (1997-2014). The research allowed to trace the correlation between the quality of pre-school education and children’s achievements during secondary school.
The guests of the Conference took interest in the collaborative report on representation types of ECERS outcomes by Dick Clifford (the US), Brenda Taggart (the UK), Tatiana Le-van and Igor Shiyan (Russia).
The researchers of the Laboratory of Child Development Olga Shiyan, Tatiana Le-van and Igor Shiyan reported the major findings of the Preschool Education Quality Study conducted in Russiain 2017-2018. Nikolai Veraksa presented a project of an auxiliary ECERS scale (assessment of an environment that supports dialectical thinking of pre-schoolers). This presentation was the starting point for a heated discussion on evolution of assessment scales.
It was decided that Moscow City University will host the XXI ECERS Conference in 2019.