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Educational effectiveness approaches in early childhood research across Europe

Despite the last 10–15 years seeing a surge in the volume of early childhood research that has been funded, conducted, and reported on, much of this has been generated by American researchers and based on samples drawn from the USA (e.g., National Institute of Child Health & Human Development Early Child Care Research Network [NICHD ECCRN], 1998, 2004, 2005). Moreover, the usefulness of such research for policy makers, practitioners, researchers, and parents outside of the USA is limited because the form, structure, and funding arrangements of early childhood education and care are all well known to vary enormously from country to country (Burger, 2010). There has also been little attempt to adopt an educational effectiveness perspective within this early childhood research – particularly when it comes to studies involving preschools. This stands in contrast to the tradition of research on schools and teachers such as that of ‘‘school effectiveness’’ and ‘‘teacher effectiveness’’ that are now increasingly captured under the broader heading of ‘‘educational effectiveness research’’ (EER; Bosker, De Vos, & Witziers, 2000; Chapman et al., 2011; Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008; Creemers, Kyriakides, & Sammons, 2010; Muijs, 2006, 2011). The focus of EER includes an interest in the identification of institutional influences (e.g., school, departmental or classroom/ teacher effects on student outcomes). It also encompasses the study of processes at different levels. Thus, EER incorporates longitudinal and multilevel research designs within the testing of educational effectiveness models for the purpose of advancing our understanding of education and its effects (for reviews and analyses of the theoretical and methodological development of EER, see Chapman et al., 2011; Creemers & Kyriakides, 2008; Creemers et al., 2010; Muijs, 2011; Sammons & Luyten, 2009; Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Teddlie & Reynolds, 2000). The infrequency of both recent and historical early childhood research that has adopted an educational effectiveness design is even more surprising given that over two decades ago McCartney and Jordan (1990) advocated an increasingly close alignment of approaches between research into the effects of child care and research into school effects. They argued that, although investigations within these two areas had developed separately, as of 1990 they were showing strong similarities in terms of their foci on three broadly equivalent research questions that had been investigated over three parallel phases: