Differential long-term effects of a language-based professional development program on instructional support quality

Figures & data

Table 1. Content of the PD approaches.

Alternative PD program (Baltrusch et al., 2009)

TwC (Kammermeyer et al., 2017)

Guiding principles Framework and cross-sectional tasks of early childhood education for language promotion in day care centers Perception and description of child language development processes Observation and documentation of language development Methodological-didactical knowledge for language promotion Design and implementation of language promotion sessions Documentation, evaluation, and further development of language promotion sessions Children under three years of age Reflection and presentation

Language promotion strategies: Language modeling (e.g., open-ended questions, self and parallel talk); concept development (e.g., building on children’s ideas and concepts, encouraging comparisons); feedback strategies (e.g., expansion, scaffolding) Application in key situations: Reading situations, routine situations, targeted activities, symbol and role play, spontaneous conversational opportunities Reflection on personal videos

Table 2. Sociodemographic data.

	Alternative PD program	Talking with Children
	Group A (n = 18)	Group B1 (n = 16)	Group B2 (n = 16)
Age	41 (11.29)	38.69 (9.9)	38.75 (9.42)
Pedagogical experience	14.72 (9.77)	12.69 (8.64)	11 (9.11)
Female/male	18/0	16/0	15/1
Multilingual yes/no	17/1	16/0	13/3
Training as state-registered educator/ academic degree/ assistant/ missing^1	14/ 2/ 1/ 1	15/ 0/ 1/ 0	14/ 0/ 2/ 0
Child-educator ratio	6.07 (1.38)	5.95 (1.34)	5.38 (0.98)
Proportion of children with a migrant background in the setting	31.59 (29.64)	26.63 (21.17)	35.46 (29.93)

Note. Academically trained professionals are still rare in Germany (about 5.3% in 2016; Autorengruppe Fachkräftebarometer, 2017). In most cases, training to become a state-registered educator consists of three years of post-secondary education at a vocational school specializing in social pedagogy. This often includes two years of study and one year of supervised internship (there are differences between federal states in Germany). Training as an assistant comprises two or three years at upper upper-secondary level vocational school (depending on previous education; see Oberhuemer, Schreyer, & Neuman, 2010).

Table 3. Descriptive statistics: instructional support quality.

	Comparison condition^a			Intervention condition^b
	Pre	Post	Follow-up	Pre	Post	Follow-up
Language modeling	2.17 (1.19)	2.50 (1.31)	2.67 (1.07)	2.81 (1.22)	4.16 (1.39)	4.45 (1.18)
Concept development	1.58 (0.79)	1.83 (0.83)	2.17 (0.58)	1.90 (0.79)	3.32 (1.35)	3.26 (1.03)
Feedback quality	1.67 (0.98)	2.00 (0.85)	2.17 (1.11)	2.29 (1.10)	3.68 (1.51)	3.84 (1.21)
Instructional support	1.81 (0.92)	2.11 (0.90)	2.33 (0.86)	2.33 (0.93)	3.72 (1.32)	3.85 (1.01)

Note. The means are given in the table. Standard deviations are given in parentheses. ^an = 12; ^bn = 31.

Table 4. Descriptive statistics: transfer-relevant factors (post-intervention).

	Comparison condition^a	Intervention condition^b
Colleague support	3.44 (0.80)	3.15 (0.80)
Supervisor support	2.36 (1.27)	2.28 (0.85)
Transfer motivation	3.89 (0.64)	3.91 (0.57)
Self-efficacy	4.19 (0.45)	3.94 (0.46)

Note. The means are given in the table. Standard deviations are given in parentheses.^a n = 12; ^b n = 31.

Table 5. Multilevel modeling results: instructional support quality.

Fixed effects	Model 1		Model 2		Model 3
	Est.	SE	Est.	SE	Est.	SE
Level 1 – intrapers.
Time.D1^a	1.09***	0.23	1.09***	0.23	0.31	0.41
Time.D2^a	1.24***	0.19	1.24***	0.19	0.53	0.33
Level 2 – interpers.
Intercept	2.19***	0.14	1.36***	0.22	1.81***	0.27
Treat^b			1.14***	0.23	0.53	0.32
Cross-level-interaction
Time.D1xTreat^b					1.08*	0.48
Time.D2xTreat^b					0.99*	0.39
Random effects
Level 1 – intrapers.	0.47		0.00		0.00
Level 2 – interpers.	0.82		0.97		0.93
Slope for Time.D1^a	1.33		1.49		1.42
Slope for Time.D2^a	1.03		1.23		1.16
Model summary
AIC	414.33		646.70		762.08
BIC	442.69		674.98		795.82
LogLik	−197.16		−313.35		−369.04

Note. AIC, BIC, and LogLik are used to represent Akaike and Bayesian Information Criterion as well as log-likelihood value, respectively.

⁺indicates p < .1 * indicates p < .05. ** indicates p < .01. *** indicates p < .001.

^aTime was dummy-coded (D1: development from pretest to posttest; D2: development from pretest to follow-up test).

^bTreatment was dummy-coded.

Table 6. Multilevel modeling results: instructional support quality and transfer conditions.

Fixed effects	Model 4		Model 5		Model 6
	Est.	SE	Est.	SE	Est.	SE
Level 1 – intrapers.
Time.D1^a	0.16	0.43	0.32	0.47	0.15	0.48
Time.D2^a	0.38	0.33	0.55	0.37	0.38	0.35
Level 2 – interpers.
Intercept	1.83***	0.27	1.66***	0.29	1.70***	0.29
Treat^b	0.45	0.32	0.59^+	0.34	0.54	0.33
COLL^c	−0.02	0.36			−0.03	0.36
SUPERV^c	−0.37	0.23			−0.51*	0.25
TMOT^c			−0.40	0.47	−0.83^+	0.49
SELFEFF^c			0.77	0.66	0.72	0.63
Cross-level-interaction
Time.D1xTreat^b	1.25*	0.50	1.10*	0.55	1.27*	0.55
Time.D2xTreat^b	1.15**	0.38	1.06*	0.43	1.19**	0.40
Time.D1xTreat^bx COLL^c	−0.26^+	0.68			−0.33	0.71
Time.D2xTreat^bx COLL^c	−0.98	0.52			−1.10*	0.51
Time.D1xTreat^bx SUPERV^c	−1.09*	0.49			−1.32*	0.54
Time.D2xTreat^bx SUPERV^c	−0.70^+	0.38			−0.98*	0.39
Time.D1xTreat^bx TMOT^c			−0.53	0.92	−0.84	0.96
Time.D2xTreat^bx TMOT^c			−0.85	0.72	−0.84	0.70
Time.D1xTreat^bx SELFEFF^c			0.30	1.24	0.28	1.21
Time.D2xTreat^bx SELFEFF^c			0.52	0.97	0.66	0.87
Random effects
Level 1 – intrapers.	0.00		0.00		0.00
Level 2 – interpers.	0.93		0.92		0.88
Slope for Time.D1^a	1.44		1.50		1.46
Slope for Time.D2^a	1.15		1.17		1.05
Model summary
AIC	1485.93		1484.72		2215.24
BIC	1550.30		1549.09		2307.56
LogLik	−718.97		−718.36		−1071.62

Note. AIC, BIC, and LogLik are used to represent Akaike and Bayesian Information Criterion as well as log-likelihood value, respectively.

⁺indicates p < .1 * indicates p < .05. ** indicates p < .01. *** indicates p < .001.

^aTime was dummy-coded (D1: development from pretest to posttest; D2: development from pretest to follow-up test).

^bTreatment was dummy-coded.

^cThese factors were centered around the grand mean.

Figure 1. Plots: Time, treatment, and support from colleagues/supervisor.

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