Research on the predictivity of activity settings, preschool teachers’ activities, and children’s activities for interaction quality is inconsistent and cannot be transferred easily to specific national preschool contexts. The present study addresses this issue by assessing the interaction quality of 185 children aged 3–5 years attending 61 preschools in Austria using the Individualized Classroom Assessment Scoring System (inCLASS). Activity settings and activities were captured using a time-sampling method. Having included control variables, regression analyses revealed that scaffolding was positively related to children’s interactions with teachers, free choice was positively related to interactions with peers, and ‘high-yield’ activities were positively related to interactions with peers and task orientation. Teacher-led activities and scaffolding were negatively related to interactions with peers, and ‘low-yield’ activities were negatively related to interactions with peers and task orientation. Effect sizes ranged from small to medium. The findings indicate that opportunities to support children remain untapped.

Academic success in early childhood teacher education is important because it provides a foundation for occupational development in terms of professional competence, the quality of educational practices, as well as career success. Consequently, identifying factors that can explain differences in academic success is an important research task. Previous research has indicated that the Big Five personality traits can predict academic success in tertiary education even when other predictors have been accounted for. However, there is a lack of research regarding students in early childhood education. Therefore, this study investigated the effects of the Big Five on the academic success of college and university students in Germany who were studying early childhood education. Data from 567 college students and 270 university students were used. Several socio-demographic variables and the school-leaving Grade Point Average (GPA) served as controls. As hypothesised, students with higher conscientiousness also had better college and university GPAs. Furthermore, higher conscientiousness was associated with higher study satisfaction but only for college students. Unexpectedly, neuroticism was not negatively related to study satisfaction. In addition, there were exploratory findings concerning the effects of agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The findings are discussed with respect to implications for research and practice. In particular, the consequences with regard to the preparation of students in early childhood education are discussed.

The career success of preschool teachers has been discussed to be important because it can be a precondition for the ability to provide a high-quality preschool education. Consequently, the identification of factors that can help explain individual differences in career success is a crucial research issue. Previous research covering various occupations indicates that the Big Five, internal locus of control (LOC), and occupational self-efficacy are good predictors of objective and subjective career success. However, there is a research gap on this topic in preschool teachers. This study examined whether the Big Five, LOC, and occupational self-efficacy could predict the career success of 560 preschool teachers in Germany. After controlling for other predictors, internal LOC corresponded with higher objective career success, but neuroticism and conscientiousness corresponded with lower subjective career success. Occupational self-efficacy corresponded with higher subjective career success. The findings are discussed with respect to practical conclusions.

A large body of research has examined the quality of educational processes in preschools, but it has usually been studied at the group level. Thus, there is a lack of research on the quality of educational processes as experienced by individual children. Therefore, this study investigated the quality of educational processes in preschools at the individual child level. The sample consisted of 133 children attending 51 preschools that were located in two German federal states. Data were collected in spring 2006 (first year in preschool), spring 2007 (second year), and spring 2008 (third year). The findings revealed moderate educational quality with regard to a ‘support of social competencies’ composite, whereas educational quality representing the composites ‘support of cognitive competencies,’ ‘support of early literacy competencies,’ and ‘support of early numeracy competencies’ was virtually inadequate. This applied to the first, second, and third preschool years. In addition, there were some modest, albeit inconsistent, changes in educational process quality over time.

Zahlreiche Studien verweisen auf die Bedeutung qualitativ hochwertiger Interaktionsprozesse in Kindertageseinrichtungen für die Entwicklung und den Bildungserfolg von Kindern. In empirischen Studien, die standardisierte Erhebungsinstrumente verwenden, richtet sich der Fokus dabei häufig auf die Qualität von Interaktionen, die von pädagogischen Fachkräften ausgehen und auf eine Kindergruppe gerichtet sind. Dieser Zugang stellt die pädagogische Perspektive des Interaktionsgeschehens in den Vordergrund und ermöglicht Rückschlüsse auf die Qualität des gruppenbezogenen Interaktionsverhaltens pädagogischer Fachkräfte. Wie gut es dagegen einzelnen Kindern gelingt, in Interaktion mit ihrer Umwelt in Kindertageseinrichtungen zu treten und welches Angebot an Interaktionen einzelne Kinder in der Kita konkret erfahren, bleibt häufig unterbelichtet. Der Beitrag informiert über ausgewählte standardisierte Verfahren zur Erhebung der Interaktionsqualität in Kindertageseinrichtungen. Neben gängigen Instrumenten zur Messung der Interaktionsqualität auf Gruppenebene, wie der Kindergarten-Skala (KES-R bzw. KES-RZ) und dem Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) fokussiert der Beitrag auf Instrumente, welche die Interaktionsqualität auf der Ebene einzelner Kinder (Zielkindebene) erfassen. Dabei wird insbesondere das bisher wenig bekannte Instrument Individualized Classroom Assessment Scoring System (in-CLASS) vorgestellt und sein Mehrwert im Vergleich zu den verbreiteten gruppenspezifischen Verfahren KES-R bzw. KES-RZ und CLASS aufgezeigt.