Practitioners’ perspectives of quality interaction within a Maltese Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) setting: A constructivist grounded theory approach

It is widely accepted that high-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) remains the cornerstone for adaptive child development, learning and minimising the early skills gap for vulnerable children (European Union, 2019; OECD, 2020a; Osgood, 2009; Shonkoff, 2014). Over the past two decades, the Republic of Malta has witnessed a surge in non-formal childcare settings, driven by the Free Childcare Scheme (FCS) and financial incentives that have enabled parents to return to the labour market (Borg, 2015; MEDE, 2013; Sollars, 2018). This economic shift has raised questions about how ECEC process quality is conceptualised and observed in Malta. The notion of quality ECEC remains nuanced by dominant views influenced by supranational organisations and may be misunderstood by individual practitioners (Campbell-Barr & Leeson, 2016).
This study explores two main research questions: What are practitioners’ perspectives of quality interactions, and how do they enact quality interactions with young children in a Maltese ECEC setting? Using an interpretivist approach and Charmaz’s (2014) Constructivist Grounded Theory (CGT) methodology, a series of pre-recorded Practitioner-Child Interactions were analysed through six practitioners’ individual Video-Stimulated Discussion (VSD) semi-structured interviews.
Practitioners’ responses led to co-constructing four empirical categories (practitioners’ repertoire, beliefs, cognitive episodes, identity and setting context) and one theoretical category (practitioners’ emotionality), conceptualising their perspectives of quality. This study offers an original contribution to understanding quality interaction practitioners’ perspectives in a small nation-state. The study limitation considers that participants had no prior experience with professional reflective practice such as VSD, which may have affected their confidence and openness to self-criticism (Consuegra et al., 2016), thereby influencing their responses.