Translating neuroscience to early childhood education: A scoping review of neuroscience-based professional learning for early childhood educators

Abstract

Over the past 20 years there has been a growing international focus within early childhood education sectors on the potential benefits of neuroscience-informed approaches. This has resulted in a burgeoning of initiatives that draw upon neuroscience to influence early childhood educator practice and, in turn, children's learning and development. This study reports an international scoping review of professional learning programs for early childhood educators that are based on the translation of neuroscience research to practice. A total of 15 studies were included with the professional learning approaches documented variously aiming to build educator knowledge, support educators to embed specific practices, and/or deliver a structured intervention with children. There were largely positive reports across studies of boosts in educator knowledge, attitudes, confidence, and self-efficacy in relation to neuroscience. In several studies, educators also reported changes to their practice, improvements in the quality of their relationships with children, and reduced stress levels. Child outcomes were less often reported, with two of the three studies reporting these documenting enhanced child social-emotional development from delivery of a specific intervention by educators. Implementation fidelity was an important aspect with high fidelity linked with better documented outcomes. Overall, the robustness of the evidence for neuroscience-based professional learning for early childhood educators is mixed, with the majority of included studies not including a comparison group, and thus causality cannot be claimed. We propose a theory of change model for this field of work, and note the current limited research focussed on outcomes beyond initial changes in educator attitudes and knowledge. There is potential for design of more comprehensive approaches to embed neuroscience in early childhood education. Future scaling up of effective programs, and design of new ones, requires deeper understanding of program implementation and points to the need for comprehensive evaluations incorporating both process and outcomes assessment.