“Group size and organisational conditions for children’s learning in preschool: a teacher perspective”.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the organisational premises for child learning at Swedish preschools, from a teacher perspective, in relation to group size and pedagogical quality. The research questions are: What are the preschool teachers’ views on group size at preschools? How do preschool teachers explain the way in which they organise groups of children and the learning environment at the preschool?

The study shows that the preschool teachers have an “either-or” idea about large and small groups. The preschool teachers associate large groups with negative aspects, including lack of time, limited possibilities to direct attention to the individual child, stress and a feeling of inadequacy. Similarly, according to the preschool teachers, it is harder to realise the curriculum if there are more children in a group. The preschool teachers associate small groups with the best possibilities to carry out teaching tasks at the preschool and to work in relation to the goals in the curriculum. The impression that it is most appropriate to work with small groups of children is very strong and often builds on teachers’ desire and ambition to get closer to the children and increase communication between the children and the preschool teachers. The study also shows that there is a great difference in how preschool teachers organise the groups of children. Teachers from some of the preschools say that they rarely divide children into smaller groups, no matter how many children they have in the total group. Teachers from other preschools say that they often divide the children up into different, smaller groups during the day. This is to exploit the physical space at the preschool optimally and to create a calmer environment, as well as to enable different learning activities. However, the study finds that, at most of the institutions, children are usually only divided into smaller groups for short periods during the day, typically in the morning.

The data for the study was collected at 12 preschools, which had been stratified so that, as far as possible, they represented small and large group sizes at Swedish preschools, as defined by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The 12 preschools are located in six municipalities in different parts of Sweden. The preschools have children aged 1-3, 3-5 and 1-5 and one preschool has a group of children aged 5. Two preschool teachers from each preschool were interviewed, and a total of 24 interviews were all recorded and transcribed. The article is based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory as well as four dimensions of pedagogical quality: dimension of society, teacher dimension, dimension of the child and dimension of the learning context. The dimensions function as an analytical approach. In the dimension of society, the analysis focuses on statements by the preschool teachers about curriculum goals related to size of group, while in the teacher dimension focus is on how and why preschool teachers organise groups of children as they do. In the dimension of the child, the analysis focuses on statements by the preschool teachers about the children’s play and learning related to group size, while in the dimension of the learning context, and again on the basis of descriptions from the preschool teachers, focus is on how the physical space, materials and activities at the preschools are organised as learning environments.

Sheridan, S., Williams, P. & Samuelsson, I. (2014). “Group size and organisational conditions for children’s learning in preschool: a teacher perspective”. Educational Research, 56(4), 379-397.