We are proud to have some of Europe’s leading researchers in early childhood education as keynote speakers at this year’s conference.
On October 22, the Norwegian Early Childhood Education Research Conference 2025 kicks off, and we are excited to present the titles and abstracts for this year’s keynotes. Jenni Salminen, Wilfried Smidt, Thomas Moser, and Eivind Aadland are all internationally recognized for their ECEC research and will deliver insightful and important lectures related to this year’s theme: together for quality in early childhood education.
How can we build a strong foundation for the youngest children in the kindergarten?
Jenni Salminen is a Postdoctoral Researcher (PhD, Docent) at the Faculty of Education and Psychology at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on teacher-child interactions in early childhood education and how these interactions influence children's learning and well-being. She is currently involved in several international research projects, including the ERC-funded EarlyMath project.
In her talk, Building Foundations for the Future: The Quality of Educator-Child Interactions in ECEC for Children Under Three, Salminen will focus on recent studies examining educator-child interactions in early childhood education settings for children under three years old. The quality of these interactions is crucial, as they directly shape children's daily experiences and development. Despite growing research on educator-child interactions, studies specifically on the youngest children remain limited. Salminen will discuss key findings on how these interactions relate to children’s learning, development, and well-being, highlighting their pedagogical and educational significance.
The Home Learning Environment – A Key to Children's Development?
Wilfried Smidt is a Professor of Education with a focus on Early Childhood Education at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and an Adjunct Professor at FILIORUM – Centre for Research in Early Childhood Education and Care. His research interests include teacher education, preschool quality, and early literacy.
In his talk, The Home Learning Environment – Conceptualization, Predictors, and Relations with Children’s Competence Development, Smidt will examine how the home learning environment (HLE) influences children's development. HLE encompasses interactions between parents and children, learning activities at home, access to educational materials, and engagement in cultural practices. Smidt will discuss theoretical perspectives on HLE, factors influencing its quality, and how it relates to children’s competence development. Finally, he will highlight implications for future research in early childhood education.
What Do Children Themselves Think About Preschool Quality?
Thomas Moser is a Professor of ECEC Research at the National Center for Learning Environment and Behavioral Research at the University of Stavanger. He is also a part of FILIORUM’s leadership team. He has extensive experience in research on preschool quality, professional development, children’s well-being, and learning.
In his talk, Quality in Kindergarten – the Perspectives of “Others” and What Children Themselves Think and Want, Moser will explore how different stakeholders—such as politicians, researchers, parents, and kindergarten staff—define kindergarten quality. He will pay particular attention to children's own perspectives: To what extent are children's voices heard in research and political discussions about kindergarten quality? Moser will present findings from recent research reviews as well as his ongoing research on children’s well-being in kindergarten. Finally, he will reflect on how children’s views can and should be included in discussions about kindergarten's societal mission and from a rights-based perspective.
How Can We Promote More Movement, Play, and Exploration in kindergartens?
Eivind Aadland is a Professor at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, and serves as the head of the research group Physical Activity and Public Health. His research focuses on how physical activity affects children's health, development, and well-being. He leads several major research projects on movement in kindergarten.
In his talk, Co-Creating Quality in Movement, Play, and Exploration in Intervention Research, Aadland will explore how preschools can facilitate more physical activity, play, and exploration in daily life. Increasing inactivity among children and the growing "schoolification" of preschool challenge children’s natural need for movement. In the MoveEarly project, researchers collaborate with 20 preschools to develop and evaluate a practice that integrates physical activity on the preschool's own terms. Through professional development for staff and a flexible implementation approach, the project examines how this can support children's development, learning, and well-being. Aadland will present the project’s structure and discuss sustainable solutions for creating a more active preschool environment.
Keynote Abstracts, Norwegian Early Childhood Education Research Conference 2025:
Building foundations for the future: The quality of educator-child interactions in ECEC for under-three-year-olds - Jenni Salminen
Increasing the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) for under-three-year-olds has become an area of interest at global and national levels (OECD, 2020). The mission has been driven by the notion of the importance of the first three years of life for life in the future: Investments made to increase the quality of ECEC for the youngest are likely to have lasting benefits on children’s concurrent and later development. Particularly the interaction between ECEC educators and children has been recognized as a central characteristic of quality, because it is directly experienced by the children in their daily life in ECEC. Although research concerning the quality of educator-child interaction in ECEC has rapidly accumulated, research conducted amongst the under-three-year-olds has remained in the marginal. In my talk, I will focus on recent studies that have aimed to understand the quality of educator-child interaction in the ECEC classrooms for under-three-year-olds and their relations to children’s learning, development and wellbeing. The pedagogical and educational relevance of the findings will be discussed.
The Home Learning Environment – Conceptualization, Predictors and Relations with Children’s Competence Development - Wilfried Smidt
In Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), the Home Learning Environment (HLE), plays a crucial role for the development of children’s competencies. HLE can be viewed as a microsystem characterized by patterns of activities and interactions between parents and their children. These activities and interactions vary depending on the characteristics of the parents and children involved, as well as more distant factors. HLE also includes the provision of educational materials as well as the practice of cultural events. The speech covers four main areas. First, the speech will illustrate which theories may be applied to conceptualize HLE. Second, research findings on the prediction of HLE will be outlined. Third, research findings on relations between HLE and the development of children’s competencies will be explicated. Fourth, conclusions and implications for future research in ECEC will be formulated.
Quality in Kindergarten – the Perspectives of “Others” and What Children Themselves Think and Want - Thomas Moser
The quality of kindergartens has long been a highly relevant topic discussed across various areas of society, such as education, health, labor market, family, and gender equality policies, as well as in different academic disciplines. Kindergarten quality is a research subject included in professional education and development. Perspectives from parents and various professional groups working with young children show similarities and differences regarding what is perceived as a good kindergarten. Different ethical, (professional) academic, and scientific approaches shape the understanding of quality, including discussing what constitutes a good kindergarten, what it should be, and for whom. Different aspects of quality will be emphasized in the discussion, depending on whether the discussion is conducted in the broader society (economy, labor market, productivity, inclusion, gender equality requirements) or whether it concerns different family constellations, the kindergarten as a workplace for a large number of employees, as a significant arena for individual children and child communities, or for children here and now or for their future.
Today, hundreds of international literature reviews and meta-analyses address kindergarten quality, which includes (again, literally) thousands of primary studies. Based on some of the latest research reviews, I will examine to what extent and in what way children’s perspectives (their voices and opinions) are included in these studies, and thus to what extent this primary target group for an educational and care service itself can contribute to the understanding of quality. Therefore, the question to be answered is to what extent the academic and political discussion of kindergarten quality reflects children’s experiences, expectations, and opinions. I will partly relate this to our ongoing research on children’s well-being in kindergarten and draw on knowledge from studies where children themselves are sources and express their understanding of what a good kindergarten is in various ways.
Finally, it is reflected upon to what extent and in what way children’s understanding can and should be considered when quality is discussed within the broad societal mission of the kindergarten, as well as from a rights perspective.
Co-Creation of Quality in Movement, Play, and Exploration in Intervention Research - Eivind Aadland
Early intervention is essential for promoting social equality, children's future opportunities, and a sustainable society. The increasing schoolification of early childhood education and the rise in children's inactivity are two concerning trends that do not serve children's best interests. These trends hinder children's natural needs for movement, play, and exploration.
Through interdisciplinary intervention research, the Move-Play-Explore in Early Childhood Education (MoveEarly) project, utilizing a cluster-randomized design, aims to promote movement, play, and exploration in early childhood education and examine how these elements can help address key challenges related to children's development, learning, and well-being. Such studies are often highly standardized, leaving little room for adaptation to the specific needs of individual preschools. However, intervention studies should likely adopt a more flexible approach to optimally accommodate each preschool's unique context. Therefore, interventions must be developed in close collaboration with preschools and other stakeholders.
Through co-creation with 20 preschools, we have developed solutions for professional development and support for educators as a foundation for designing and evaluating pedagogical practices focused on movement, play, and exploration. Preschool staff in the intervention group participate in professional development (an optional 15-credit course) and engage in development work over 18 months. We have established guiding principles for movement, play, and exploration, which the preschools will integrate into their pedagogical practices in their own way during this period.
The project is being conducted in preschools in Vestland, Norway, from 2024 to 2026. We will carry out an effect evaluation to assess how the intervention influences children's holistic development and a process evaluation to gain insights into staff competence needs and how they understand and develop their practices. We hope that a comprehensive evaluation, using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, will provide valuable knowledge about sustainable solutions for developing early childhood education practices and supporting children's holistic development.