Browsing by Subject "daycare quality"

The aim of this study is to investigate the stress levels of children who attend day care by examining the relations between the quality of the day care centre, child's individual characteristics and stress. This study is a part of a broader study concerning children's stress regulation and learning at the Department of Teacher Education in the University of Helsinki. The participants of the study were 33 day care centres in 5 towns in Southern Finland. The 340 children examined in the study were between the ages 3 and 7. The evaluation of stress levels was completed by stress hormone measurements. These measurements were obtained by saliva samples which were taken from the children (N=340) a total of five (N=5) times during a day. The measuring process was carried out both at home and at the day care centre. The samples were then frozen and analysed at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The quality of the day care centres was explored from several aspects. However, the examination stayed on the micro level – i.e. the quality factors were evaluated empirically. In this process, the structural and process related quality factors in the day care group's learning environment were assessed. To do this, The Learning Environment Assessment Scale (Strain & Joseph 2004) was used as a medium of assessment. In this scale, the observed subjects are multifaceted. They include classroom arrangement, assessment of activity and transition situations, and the working methods of the pedagogues. A child's individual characteristics were assessed by exploring the child's temperament. The parents evaluated their child's temperament with the Children's Behaviour Questionnaire which has been created by Rothbart (2001). The results indicate that the children's stress hormone levels during the day followed the normal everyday cortisol cycle. On average, however, girls were more stressed than boys. High quality evaluations of the pedagogue team's functionality as well as consistency and clarity in the activity and transition situations reduced the children's stress levels. Children who had a tendency to react to the smallest of stimuli were most likely to have higher stress levels. Girls, whose temperament had been evaluated to not show anger and frustration, were more stressed on average. Also, boys whose activity level was evaluated to be high had stress levels above average.