The Chinese government announced the three-child policy on May 31, 2021, in order to alleviate the aging population problem. Under the three-child policy, parental demands for childcare services increased, but the degree of socialization of childcare services in China was low. The qualitative research was used with a content analysis approach based on the data acquired using in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 20 groups of parents who were planning to have a third child and were looking for childcare services for their children. Participating parental demands for childcare services covered five themes: two sides of a coin for a family; environment and facilities requirements; professionalism needs; instruction and guidance requirements; and public childcare services system demands. The results of the cross-case comparison showed that different factors, such as family income, educational background of parents, differences in gender roles of parents, and whether grandparents involved in childcare influence parental demands for the length, content, type, and price of childcare services. It is essential for the government to consider professionalism, universality, systematization, convenience, and diversification in the process of accelerating the socialization of childcare services for infants and toddlers under the three-child policy in China.

The home-rearing environment (HRE) is significantly related to preschoolers’ academic and behavioral development. Children’s screen time has become an increasingly important aspect of the family environment in today’s digital age. However, few studies explored screen time’s indirect role in the relationships between HRE and children’s development. This study was conducted in three provinces of China, and 825 child-parent dyads participated. The results indicated that a high-quality HRE is directly associated with better language and cognitive skills, self-regulation, self-efficacy, and fewer problem behaviors in children. Screen time has an indirect role in this relationship, suggesting that a better HRE associated with lower screen time improves children’s outcomes. However, the HRE did not show a significant indirect role through screen time related to children’s problem behavior, indicating other factors may play a role. The study highlights the importance of fostering enriching home environments and managing screen time to support children’s development.

The influence of students’ epistemic orientations on their learning behavior and outcomes is well-documented. However, limited research explores students’ epistemic orientations in terms of conceptual engagement and learning outcomes. This study, set within the context of higher education, examined the patterns of conceptual engagement among two performance groups and identifies differences in their epistemic orientations. Both epistemic network analysis (ENA) and ordered network analysis (ONA) methods were used. The results from the ENA revealed distinct trajectories and patterns of conceptual engagement between high-performing and low-performing students during different periods in their learning journey. High-performing students were able to establish a more interconnected and distributed epistemic network earlier than their low-performing counterparts. ONA results revealed that (1) high-performing students were more inclined to employ abstract theoretical concepts to address empirical concerns, doing so more frequently and earlier; and (2) low-performing students benefitted from forum interactions with high-performing students to expand their knowledge resources and engagement with theoretical constructs over time. These discoveries contribute to our comprehension of epistemic orientations in different learners. The implications of this study could help generate learning analytics that monitor students’ conceptual engagement in forum discussion and provide feedback to guide the design of learning.

The purpose of this study was to Meta-analyze the empirical evidence of the effectiveness of ICTs assisted teaching on preschool children's mathematical achievement. A systematic search of English-writing, peer-reviewed, and randomized controlled studies was conducted. There were 19 studies in which 3,900 participants met the study selection criteria. The results showed that ICTs had a positive and medium effect on young children's mathematics achievement (SMD=0.673), especially on reasoning (SMD=0.642) and numeracy (SMD=0.641) achievement. Under different moderating variables, such as ICTs devices type and experiment period, the effect of ICTs on preschoolers' mathematical achievement was different. Touch screen ICTs devices (SMD=0.834) and experimental periods of less than 4 weeks (SMD=0.769) had high effect levels. According to different mathematics teaching content, flexibly choose and use ICTs devices, and adjust the teaching period of ICTs using to improve the effect of mathematics teaching and children's mathematics achievement.