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CHAPTER 6: RESEARCH FINDINGS: THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENT PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES AND PRACTICES – 57Child-initiated (child-centred) and staff-initiated (staff-centred) activitiesThe EPPE project (Sylva et al., 2004) and the REPEY project (Siraj-Blatchford et al. 2002),both conducted in England, have provided some of the most comprehensive and robust researchon the identification of effective pedagogy. The researchers first identified ECEC settings thatimproved children’s development in different areas (cognitive and social-behavioural) mosteffectively, and then investigated the features of pedagogy carried out in these settings. Theyfound that excellent settings struck a balance between staff-initiated group-work, free play andinstructive play activities.The pedagogies designated as effective in the studies noted have been identified in otherstudies. Willson-Quayle and Winsler (2000) compared environments that were highly teacherdirected,child-centred and those that adopted a mix of both practices, known as the scaffoldingenvironment, to show whether they enhanced low-income Latino preschoolers’ learning,motivation and language development. In the process of scaffolding, children are helped by thepractitioner to master a task or concept that they are initially unable to grasp independently. Thepractitioner offers assistance only with skills that are beyond the child’s capability. The child mustbe allowed to complete as much of the task as possible unassisted. The practitioner only attemptsto help children with tasks just beyond their current capability. The children in the scaffoldingfocusedlearning environment performed best in the study tasks set, and also showed greatestoverall positive effects on their development. The authors concluded that learning and motivationbenefit most from moderate levels of staff involvement and a practice that is also not too childcentred.Tazouti et al. (2011) compared the early learning abilities of 299 French and 253 Germanchildren who attended either preschool (école maternelle) in France or traditional kindergarten inGermany. The study concluded that staff-initiated or child-initiated practices can each have itstheir advantages. A cross-country comparison between France and Germany is of particularinterest to compare the effects of a formal, didactic “work”-oriented approach as practised inFrench preschools (i.e. a mostly teacher-initiated approach), with a child-centred one in Germany.The tests covered nine learning areas related to arithmetic (spatial organisation, counting,rhythms), reading-writing (visual discrimination, auditory discrimination, sound-spellingpatterns), and transversal learning (handwriting, visual memory, auditory memory). Three groupsof variables were measured to identify potential differences between the French and Germanchildren, including the nature of the educational establishment, individual variables (such associal class and gender), and parental expectations. On pupils’ total scores, the nature of theeducational establishment (the country variable) did not in fact have a significant effect. Thoughthe mean performances of the children in both France and Germany would render the ECECsystems equal in their effect, significant differences in different areas distinguish French andGerman children, which can be attributed to the ECEC country variation. For example, Frenchchildren obtained better results on the rhythm, visual discrimination and spatial organisation tests,because French nursery schools frequently practice these activities, while German childrenperformed significantly better on arithmetic tests. German children also performed better insound-spelling pattern tests and on the visual memory and auditory memory tests, which arefound to develop more quickly in play situations. One important aspect of comparing childdevelopment outcomes is how the tests are performed. In Germany, evaluations or tests arecarried out in a spontaneous, informal and formative way, whereas in France, evaluations aremore programmed and formal. As a result, French children are more stressed during the tests,while the German children were more relaxed and motivated by them (Tazouti et al. 2011).Marcon (2002) investigated the effects of different pedagogical preschool models, childcentred,staff-centred, and mixed, on later school success, examining the progress of children inYear 5 and Year 6 of primary school. The study examined report card grades, retention rates andspecial education placement of 160 children at the end of their fifth year in school, and 183EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE PEDAGOGY REVIEW: ENGLAND © OECD 2015