Early Childhood Education and Care

Scientific staff

Secretariat

Student employees

The Department of Early Childhood Education offers various courses on changing topics both in the Bachelor's programme in Educational Science and in the Master's programme in Educational Science. Courses are offered on the following topics, among others:

• Early childhood education and care

In the lecture (module 13 in the Bachelor's degree program), central concepts of education and care in early childhood are discussed and theoretical approaches and empirical research findings are presented, historically classified and compared. In the seminars on education and care in early childhood, various topics are addressed. The seminars focus, for example, on developmental psychological aspects of early childhood (e.g. emotional, social, cognitive and motivational aspects of early childhood learning), educational quality (e.g. process, structural and orientation quality), pedagogical concepts of action (e.g. Fröbel, Reggio, Montessori, Freinet, Pikler) or professionalization in early childhood education.

• Education in the family and daycare center

This course describes and analyzes theories and research findings on the understanding of learning and educational processes in families and ECEC institutions. The focus is on pedagogical intergenerational relationships and the interaction of family and ECEC contexts during transitions in the education system. In addition to their importance for individual learning and educational development, the family, crèche and kindergarten are also discussed as social institutions with culturally and historically different structures and functions.

• Seminar on the Bachelor's thesis

The topics of the Bachelor's theses are in the field of early childhood education. The seminar serves to support the individual and independent process of writing a Bachelor's thesis.

• Seminar on the Master's thesis

In this course, the research topics of the Master's theses in educational science (possibly with a focus on early childhood education) are presented, discussed and specified. The progress of the Master's theses is also discussed.

Supervision of Master's theses

If you are interested in writing a Master's thesis with a focus on early childhood education please contact Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wilfried Smidt (wilfried.smidt@uibk.ac.at), Laura Zöggeler-Burkhardt, PhD (laura.burkhardt@uibk.ac.at) or Eva-Maria Embacher, PhD (eva-maria.embacher@uibk.ac.at).

Brief description: This cooperative research project aims to shed light on the topic of early language support in the context of early childhood education practice and training in Lower Austria, Tyrol and Vienna. The aim is to develop methods and educational materials for early language education and support.

8/2023 - 8/2024: Research project "Education for sustainable development in early childhood and social education institutions".
(SENSE) (supported by the Euregio Mobility Fund, cooperation project with Univ.-Prof. Dr. Iris Nentwig-Gesemann, Free University of Bozen/Bolzano and Univ.-Prof. Simona De Falco, University of Trento)
Brief description: The project aims to outline Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as a global challenge, to discuss various social and early childhood education concepts and to gain an in-depth insight into examples of good practice of sustainability-oriented education and educational work.

6/2023 - 5/2025: Research project "The quality of preschool teachers' training in Austria and Ukraine: A comparative analysis" (funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture).
(funded by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research; cooperation project with Univ.-Prof. Dr. Oresta Karpenko, Drohobych Ivan Franko State Pedagogical University, Ukraine)
Brief description: The research project conducts a comparative analysis of preschool teachers' training at pedagogical colleges (Austria) and universities (Ukraine) by doing document analyses, surveys, and guided interviews.

9/2022 - 8/2023: Research project "Assistants in kindergartens - an important but hardly noticed occupational group ".
(funded by the Chamber of Labour for Tyrol; together with Prof. Dr. Bernhard Koch, University of Education Tyrol).
Brief description: The research project examines various aspects of the professionalisation of assistants in kindergartens in Tyrol.

3/2021 - 12/2021: Research project "COVID-19 pandemic and parental promotion of early literacy ".
(funded by the province of Tyrol)
Brief description: The research project investigates aspects of parental support for children's early literacy skills during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is primarily aimed at parents of kindergarten children who are about to start school (in the last year of kindergarten).

7/2020 - 12/2020: Research project on home learning environments during the COVID-19 pandemic.
(together with Jun.-Prof. Dr. Melanie Jester, University of Koblenz-Landau, univ.-internal funds).

10/2018 - 12/2021: Research project InKi "Interaction quality of children in kindergarten"
(funded by the Fund for the Promotion of Scientific Research, FWF).
Brief description: Children acquire basic skills primarily through interaction processes. The quality of these interactions is of great importance for their linguistic, cognitive and social-emotional development as well as for their educational success. Especially against the background of educational disadvantages, findings on the quality of interaction in kindergartens are therefore of great relevance. The aim of the study is to cross-sectionally and longitudinally examine the quality of the children's interactions with teachers and peers as well as the quality of their engagement with the educational offers of the institutions on the basis of a sample of 360 kindergarten children from 90 kindergartens in Austria (Tyrol). The expected gain in knowledge is a more precise understanding of children's interactions in kindergartens, which can be used to improve children's interaction competence.

9/2018 - 8/2021: Research project LeiKi "Leadership Quality in Day Care Facilities for Children "
(funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF/Germany; together with Dr. Thilo Schmidt, University of Koblenz-Landau).
Short description: In the project "Management Quality in Child Day Care Facilities", the researchers are investigating the role of managers in child day care facilities with regard to their pedagogical process quality. In addition, the institution's management and personnel characteristics (e.g. professional qualifications and background, professional goals) will be examined in order to determine the relationship between leadership quality and pedagogical process quality. The focus will be on leadership behaviour in heterogeneous pedagogical teams. For the surveys, the project uses, among other things, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System established in the English-speaking world. The successful leaders identified in this way will be interviewed in depth in order to work out significant characteristics of good leadership quality. Information at: https://www.empirische-bildungsforschung-bmbf.de/de/2859.php

10/2017 - 6/2018: Research project "Quality indicators of forest childcare facilities in Tyrol" (funded by the Tyrol)
(funded by the Province of Tyrol and the Vice-Rectorate for Research of the University of Innsbruck).

since 3/2015: Dissertation projects on elementary education research questions