Day care

What is Daycare? Temporary care provided by someone other than the primary care giver – It is not the same as residential nurseries or fostering – It is not care provided by family members or someone known to the child – It includes Child minders (where children are looked after in their own or someone else’s home) Nannies (within the home) Day Nurseries (large numbers of children and staff)

Research Brief Research has suggested that children who’s mothers work have lower academic achievement later in life. (Ermish & Francesconi (2000)) You are going to test this theory.

Research Brief Working in pairs, design a questionnaire that measures: – The participant’s academic performance – The amount of time the participant's mother spent at work before the age of 5 You will then use your questionnaire with the rest of the class. The aim is to produce a scatter graph, and see if there is any correlation. At the end of the lesson, you are going to present your findings and conclusion to the rest of the class.

Breakdown of research… 5 minutes planning with partner 5 minutes deciding and preparing method 5minutes collecting results 5 minutes analysing findings

When designing a questionnaire researchers need to consider;  qualitative or quantitative data,  how the questions are worded,  number and layout of questions,  the sample,  a pilot study,  any ethical issues. Questionnaires

If researchers want qualitative data they should ask open questions if they want quantitative data they should ask closed questions. Some questionnaires use measurement scales on which participants rate their agreement or disagreement with a statement.

Questions should be clear and concise and not be leading, emotive, or ambiguous. The longer a questionnaire is the more likely it is that people will not answer it.

Ready, set, GO! screen-stopwatch/ screen-stopwatch/

What do you think about Day Care?

Opposing Views Kathy Gyngell (Full-Time Mothers Association) “When a mother dies, that is a tragedy. But we impose that tragedy on every child when we go out to work.” Link Tony Munton (London University’s Institute for Education) “We know that day care doesn’t do children any harm, especially if it is of a good quality.”

Arguments For and Against Day Care Work in 4 groups – Group 1 and 3: List the arguments for day care – Group 2 and 4: List the arguments against day care Rank the arguments in order of importance How valid do you think these arguments are?

Evaluating the Arguments Individual differences Different children will react to day care in different ways Which type of child will benefit from day care? Which type of child may find day care to be detrimental? – Pennebaker et al (1981): Children who are shy may find day care to be frightening

Evaluating the Arguments  Individual differences – The NICHD (1997) found that children who’s mothers lacked responsiveness (and therefore may be insecurely attached) did less well at day care  However – Egeland and Hiester (1995) found that insecurely attached children did better in day dare, whereas securely attached children became more aggressive. – They argue that insecurely attached children need compensatory education, but this was unnecessary for securely attached children.

Evaluating the Arguments  Number of Hours  How many hours a week in day care is too much? – NICHD (2001) found that babies who spent more than 10 hours a week in day care were more aggressive when they reached school.

Evaluating the Arguments Number of Hours However – Clarke-Stewart et al (1994) found no difference in attachment between children who spent more than 30 hours in day care and children who spent less than 10 hours a week – Scarr and Thompson (1994) found that placing a child in day care for more than 20 hours a week before the age of 1 had no significant effect on school performance

Evaluation  Be aware when looking at research into child care that many of the studies are correlational – For example, does a study that shows that children in day care tend to be more aggressive definitely mean that day care causes aggression? – Could there be another interpretation of the results? – How about a study that shows that children in high quality day care do better at school? – Why are correlational studies used so much when looking at day care?

Evaluation – Most of the research is based on field observations at real life day care centres. How could this make the results more valid? How could it make the results less valid? Can the experimenter control for all the variables? – Many of the studies were carried out more than 10 years ago, and day care may have changed since then.

Homework Write up an experiment on child care with the headings: – Aim (what did you aim to find out?) – Hypothesis (what did you think you would find?) – Procedure (what did you do?) – Results (raw results - %’s of findings etc) – Evaluation (what did you find out, and does it match other people’s findings?) – Appendix (copy of anything vital e.g. the survey?)

Homework Name three attachment types and three behaviours that are associated with each? Long home work: Read and note chapters about attachment.