Interaction Quality Among Children, Staff and Parents in German ECEC Centres in the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres implemented various protective and hygiene measures. Some of these, such as maintaining distance or wearing face masks, temporarily restricted interactions between pedagogical staff, children, and parents. This may have made it difficult for staff to provide high-quality interactions with positive and sensitive attitudes towards children and parents. The long-term effects of these distancing measures on the quality of daily interactions in ECEC centres have been largely unexplored. Based on a panel survey of German ECEC centre leaders conducted over a period of one and a half years, we used random-effect-within-between models to provide a long-term assessment of the effects of specific protective measures on different levels of interactions within ECEC centres. These levels include staff-child interactions, interactions between children, and cooperation between staff and parents. Our findings indicate that child-child interactions were largely unaffected by the measures, while staff-parent interactions suffered the most. Communication with parents and regular implementation of pedagogical practices had a stabilizing effect, while keeping distance from children, wearing face masks, and (pandemic-related) staff shortages worsened staff-child interactions. Additionally, our findings revealed that adopting a stricter group concept was associated with improved staff-child interactions. Centers that had previously used an open group concept reported lower quality interactions during the pandemic. This study provides valuable insights into the effects of protective measures on daily interactions in ECEC centres, highlighting the importance of considering both short-term and long-term effects when implementing protective measures.