A-Level Psychology Day Care

1. ‘Infant day care: Maligned or
malignant?’
Clarke-Stewart 1986
Gemma Ashling

2. STARTER
Answer the questions with a sentence then swop with
the person to your right
 What do the following mean; Attachment , Deprivation , Day-care,
Separation Anxiety
 What are the types of attachment ?
 What is monotropy & who developed it.
 What research did the Robertsons do?
 What study did Bowlby use to mostly base his theory of maternal
deprivation?
 Can you name a study on the cultural differences in attachment?
 Who is Mary Ainsworth and what did she do?
 What is a Structured Observation and a Longitudinal Study ?
 Correlational study – what inferential test would you use?

3. Aim (S)
To understand how psychological research has
shaped current childcare practices.
To explain the effects of day care on child
development using psychological research.

4. Learning Objective for Day Care
 To be able to give reasons with evidence from psychological
that daycare is good or bad for children
 To be able to describe and (ext evaluate) psychological
evidence for the effects of day care on infant development
 To be able to start to outline some implications and
improvements that daycare research has had on daycare
provision and practice.

5. Lets consider some previous research…
• Bowlby (1953) suggested that the separation of children
from their mother would have effects on child
development and could even be a cause of delinquency
• Attachment theory predicts that children who are secure in
their relationships with important figures in their lives will
later on have more positive relationships with others.
• For secure relationships in later life Bowlby suggested care
should be consistent.
• Ainsworth (supported by Shaffer & Emerson 1967), in her
cross-cultural, attachment research found

6. Can you remember the Robertsons?
 In the 1950’s parents were discouraged from visiting children in hospital
because it was thought to cause distress to the children. Based on
attachment research, children’s wards now routinely allow parents to stay
with their children and actively involve the parents in planning and
implementing their child’s care.
 This change was influenced largely by Robertson and Robertson (1971).
They provided evidence that separating children from their mothers would
cause damage to their attachment.
 They also demonstrated that, if it was the parent who was in hospital
instead, then providing the child with suitable substitute emotional care
can help reduce the negative effects of mother and child separation.
 T

7. What is meant by Day care
 Day Care is an everyday situation which usually involves the
first continuous physical separation from the primary care
giver In the UK approximately 70% of women with children
under the age of one go out to work (Gregg et al, 2005)
 Childminders – take care of small groups in their own home.
Carers must be registered.
 Day Nursery and pre-school provision
 Nurseries, Childminders, Babysitters, Au pairs/nannies

8. Difference between day care and
institutionalisation
Day care DOES NOT INCLUDE fostering, care
homes or health-related such as
hospitalisation.
What is the difference (if any) between the
effects of Instituitionalisation and those from
going into day care?
 3min

9. .

10. What is meant by ‘social development?’ 3
min
Feedback

11. Aggression – The NICHD study
 The National Institute of Child and Human Development began a longitudinal
study in 1991 to study a range of aspects of child development. Over 1000 children
from diverse families.
 At age 5 children who had spent more time in day-care of any kind or quality were
rated as more disobedient and aggressive and assertive (NICHD 2003)
 Children in long-term day-care. Those in full-time day-care were almost 3 X more
to show behaviour problems than those at home. Behaviour problems included
lying, hitting, temper tantrums.
 Belsky et al 2007) studied the same children at the end of primary school and still
found link between day-care experience and aggressiveness.

12. Effects of day care on attachment & social
development
Egeland and Hiester (1995)
They found that day care had a negative effect for securely attached children, but
positive effects for insecurely attached children.
The insecure children needed compensatory care, which was provided by the day care.
Securely attached children didn’t require the extra attention and were separated from
good quality care at home, which was harmful to them.
This is important evidence concerning the additional factors which need to be taken
into consideration in assessing how day care affects social development, namely their
attachment type before entering day care.

13. The EPPE Study
 Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project (Sylva et al 2003) was the first
major European longitudinal study of young childrens development between the
ages of 3 and 7.
 3000 children looked at different variables inc home environment, experience of
day care.
 Day care settings included community and private day nurseries, and nursery pre-
school. Also included a group with no experience of day care
 Q.) Why include a group with no day care?

14. EPPE Findings
 Children who spent more time in day-care as measured by start of day care to start
of primary school) were rate as displaying more aggressive, disobedient and anti-
social behaviours by their teachers.
 This effect was mainly within the community & private day-care nursery groups.
This maybe due to the fact that many of these children were under 2 when they
began.
 The negative impact of the duration of day-care was mediated by quality of
provision. Better quality day-care provision reduces negative effects of a long
duration of day-care.

15. Social Strategies
 Day care exposes children to pee and thus enables them to develop social
strategies, such as sharing, negotiating, communicating.
 Field (1991)
 This study examined the effects of day care concerning the amount of time
children spent in day care and the quality of care they received.
 It was found that the more time children spent in day care, the more friends they
had.
 Those who experienced high-quality day care showed more physical affection
when interacting with peers.
 Overall, this study demonstrates that day care has positive effects on peer
relations.

16. Social Development Attachment
 Secure Attachment is linked to peer relations. The Minnesota longitudinal study
(Sroufe 2005) found that securely attached infants go to be more popular
 Belsky & Rovine…..
 The EPPE study found increased independence and sociability in children who had
attended daycare.

17. Current Research
A new longitudinal study has just started in the UK
following 1200 UK children from birth to school age
in London and Oxfordshire – the Families Children
and Childcare project (FCCC)
Have a look at its recent findings on the website
familieschildrenchildcare.org

18. Key Terms so far
 Longitudinal
 Daycare
 Peer relations
 Social development
 Key Studies
 EPPE
 Belky & Rovine
 NICHD
 Field

19. Your task…in your groups of three
 You are researchers and you have been commissioned by the Welcome Trust to
present the evidence regarding the effects of day care and whether or not it has
the same effects of institutionalisation.
 Include -Social Development, Aggression, Peer Relations, academic achievement
Note are there are interactions between variables such as age at entry to daycare and
duration spent in daycare.
Note what methodological issues if any are there with the research that may make it
less reliable or valid?
 Summarise the main points such as area of impact ie. Aggression, (how
aggression measured/operationalised?)
 age of infant, type and quality of day care, mothers sensitivity
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/03/2007_19_wed.shtml
 John Bowlby’s son podcast
 familieschildrenchildcare.org

20. Longer opening hours for nurseries risk
“institutionalising” young children and marginalising
family life, a teachers’ leader has warned.
Mary Bousted, head of the Association of Teachers
and Lecturers, said a culture of long working days in
Britain meant children might come home from
nurseries to exhausted parents. Her comments came
as the Government extended more of its school
reforms to the nursery sector, by expanding the
Teach First programme to recruit more elite
graduates as early-years teachers.
Children as young as two could be accepted at nursery schoolsGetty Images
Greg Hurst Education Editor
Published at 12:01AM, April 8 2014
Education
‘End of road for childhood’ as nurseries
open all hours

21. Yes Agree No Disagree
10 minutes

22. Research methods Interlude
 Key Terms – add to glossary
 Mediating factor
 Extraneous (confounding) variables
 Individual differences
 Causality.

23. Think Pair Share
Describe HOW psychologists have investigated the
impact of day care on aggression?
Explain why there may be differences in the impact of
different forms of daycare?
Feedback…

24. Evaluation A02
Aggression and Dayare
 Not all research shows increased in aggression with more time spent in daycare
 For example Prodromidis et al (1995) studies first-borns, and concluded that childcare
arrangements were not associated with aggression.
 The NICHD results actually showed that a mothers sensitivity was a better indicator than
behavioural problems.
 Higher maternal education and family income also predicted lower levels of children’s
behaviour (NICHD 2007). The 2006 data showed children’s development is more strongly
affected by factors at home than those in daycare (Belsky, 2007).
 Lack of a causal relationship – a final important consideration is that the findings are not
causal
 The APA (Dingfielder 2004) suggests that results are meaningless unless one know the
process by which aggression is increased, eg it could be that aggression only increases
with lack of adequate supervision!

25. Do It Yourself 3min in groups
The studies all make use of existing data – observation,
self report.
How would you conduct a study to show that day care
CAUSES aggression?

26. Peer Relations
 The LACK of CAUSALITY is a major problem we only know
there is a link
 It may be that shy children may have similar temperament to
the mothers and maybe those mothers like to keep their
children at home, thus there are more sociable children
attending day care – explaining the results of increased
confidence and sociability.
Think!!
 How do we measure (operationalise) sociability?

27. Day Care has No Effects
Individual differences
Permanency of effect
So many variables impossible to account for them all
Q’s3 min
What are these ‘other’ variables called?
An example of one of these would be???

28. Mediating factors
 What is a mediating factor? a connecting link – an interaction
 Quality of Care – Ratio of staff to child (NICHD 2003),
 High staff turnover?
 Lack of commitment and interest- Howes et al (1992)
 Individual differences – Pennebaker and NICHD Egelund and Heister
 Childs age
 Number of hours
Your Task – provide evidence for the influence of one of the above one
per group
5 minutes

29. Mediating factor of Day-Care - Consistency
Tizard, 1979): Means that attachments are unlikely to form. Tizard's study of
the institutionalised children demonstrated this as the reason they did not
form attachments prior to foster care was due to the high turnover of
staff; each child averaged 50 carers before the age of 4.
High consistency (Kagan et al., 1980): Consistency is essential if the substitute
care is to provide emotional care. This was a key focus in Kagan et al.'s
research where they set up their own nursery school. Children who
experienced this appeared to suffer no negative effects of day care, which
shows the importance of consistency.

30. Howes et al. (1998)
 This study aimed to see how day care can be improved by providing
additional training techniques.
 One group of caregivers were given no additional training. The children
cared for by these caregivers didn’t improve in their attachment security
over time.
 Another group were given training which intended to increase caregiver
sensitivity.
 The 36 children cared for by the trained group improved in the security of
their attachments, becoming more secure over time. This research
therefore shows how day care can be improved to ensure that it aids
social development.

31. Real World Applications AO2 AO3
 Tunstill et al. (2005) The Sure Start programme started in 2001 with the aim of
providing day care and support for families.
 This study was of 9 and 36 month old children and their families from 150 Sure
Start Local Programme areas (areas of high risk). They were compared to 50 control
communities.
 Beneficial effects were found where mothers of 36 month olds were less likely to
use physical methods on their children when they misbehaved.
 This prevention of mistreatment and the improvement in the mother’s sensitivity
allowed their child’s attachment to be more secure.
 This is evidence of how large scale projects can help families with their childcare
practises and consequentially improve the infant’s social development.

32. Features of good day care
Verbal interaction Encouraging regular two-way communications between carers
and children is stimulating and helps cement relationships.
Stimulation Good provision of toys, books, interaction etc.
Sensitive emotional care Use of carers sensitive and responsive to children’s needs.
Low staff turnover Achieved by providing a good working environment, training
and financial reward.
Consistency of care Having the same carers tending a child allows secure
attachments to form.
Low staff-children ratio A staff to children ratio of about 1:3 is ideal, though this varies
with age. Smaller groups are easier for young children to deal
with.
Mixed-age groups Groups comprising young and older children allow younger
children the opportunities to learn social behaviours through
observation and imitation.
Structured time Activities should be well structured as part of a routine,
creating a predictable, calming environment, with some free
play time available too.

33. Homework
 Day-care can have positive effects on child development. However, some
researchers have found a link between day-care and negative effects on
child development.
 1.) Briefly outline one research study that found negative effects of
daycare. (3marks AO1)
 2.) Evaluate your chosen study (4 marks AO2)
 Hint – evaluate the methodology, the implications of findings, could you
suggest any improvements (ext). For example have researchers taken
account of confounding, extraneous variables? If not what could they be?
And so forth.

34. Example Outline AO1 and Evalution AO2
Belsky & Rovine (1988) aimed to investigate the effect of daycare on attachments with
mothers and fathers. Used the findings of two American longitudinal studies to assess effects of
daycare . Children had experienced daycare within the first year of life and attachments to the
mother and father were examined. The strange situation procedure was used to classify
attachment types. They found that early onset and intensive hours in daycare has a negative
impact on attachments (more than 20 hours per week before the age of two years). AO1
Does not take account of parenting differences or pre-existing differences between the two
samples. Furthermore, the strange situation may not be an accurate research tool in this context,
as children in day care are more used to being separated, and may be indifferent to being left.
This could result in their being incorrectly categorised as 'insecure-avoidant'. However, Belsky &
Rovine's study is evidence that early separations should be approached with caution. Whether
day care has positive or negative effects on social development may depend on the attachment
type of the infant before they enter day care. AO2

35. What have you learned?
What is meant by ‘day care’?
What are the areas
Tell me one study that demonstrated negative effects
on one of the areas of child development?