The Home Learning Environment (HLE) plays a prominent role in children’s development. Several measures have been developed to assess its quality; however, most of them seem to mainly focus on specific aspects of the HLE construct. The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Home Learning Environment Questionnaire (HLEQ); and to examine the characteristics of the HLE and the HLE profiles using the new instrument in the Greek educational context. The HLEQ is a parent-reported measure addressing both activities and interactions, comprising of six factors that are considered key elements of the HLE: indoor, outdoor, and digital learning activities, warmth/support, conflict, and inconsistent discipline. The development of HLEQ followed a robust methodological approach, including the collection of an initial pool of items, expert review to examine its content validity, and piloting. The HLEQ was administrated to 814 parents (M_age = 37.86 years, SD = 4.84) of children (M_age = 64.12 months, SD = 7.19) attending 84 state funded kindergartens in Greece. A cross-validation approach was used to examine the factor structure of the HLEQ. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and exploratory structural equation modeling procedures were implemented. Latent profile analysis was employed to identify the HLE profiles. Results provided initial support for the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the HLEQ. The HLEQ displayed good psychometric properties for measuring the quality of home learning activities and home learning interactions in the contemporary early HLE. Four HLE profiles were revealed, representing different parent-child interaction patterns during the learning activities. Limitations and implications for policy and practice are discussed.

The Preschool Early Numeracy Skills Test–Brief Version (PENS‐B) is a measure of early numeracy skills, developed and mainly used in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial validity and measurement invariance across gender of PENS‐B in the Greek educational context. PENS‐B was administered to 906 preschool children (473 boys, 433 girls), randomly selected from 84 kindergarten classrooms. A 2PL unidimensional and multidimensional item response theory analysis, using cross‐validation procedures, were used to analyze the data. Results showed that responses to 20 items can be adequately explained by a two‐dimensional model (Numbering Relations and Arithmetic Operations). Application of differential item functioning procedures did not detect any gender bias. Numeracy Relation comprises 16 items, which assess low levels of this latent trait. On the other hand, four items capture average levels of Arithmetic Operations. Total information curves revealed that both dimensions measure with precision only a small area of their underlying latent trait.

Families play a central role in shaping young children’s learning and development through everyday interactions and shared activities in the home environment. As digital technologies have become increasingly embedded in family life, digital home learning activities have emerged as a meaningful dimension of the broader Home Learning Environment, although research in this area remains limited. The present study examined the psychometric structure and characteristics of digital home learning activities and explored their associations with preschool children’s socio-emotional difficulties, as well as demographic factors related to variation in these activities across families. Data were collected from two independent parent samples (N = 308) of families with preschool-aged children. Digital home learning activities were assessed using the digital home learning activities subscale of the Home Learning Environment Questionnaire, while children’s socio-emotional difficulties were measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Group A) and selected items from the Child Behavior Checklist (Group B). Confirmatory factor analyses supported a unidimensional structure with satisfactory reliability across both samples. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that digital home learning activities were generally not associated with children’s socio-emotional difficulties after demographic characteristics were taken into account. However, parent age and parent education were associated with variation in these activities across families.

Early childhood represents a critical developmental period during which children acquire foundational skills in literacy, numeracy, and social-emotional competence (Gregoriadis and Evangelou 2022)....