ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1622163
This article is part of the Research TopicAttachment Theory in Educational PsychologyView all articles
It takes two to tango – How teacher-child interactions help to advance children's emotion knowledge
Provisionally accepted
- 1Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Educational Sciences, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
- 2Leuphana University Lueneburg, Institute for Sustainability Psychology, 21335 Lueneburg, Germany
- 3Leuphana University Lueneburg, Institute for Sustainability Psychology, 21335, Lueneburg, Germany
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Because young children’s emotion knowledge and language skills grow in tandem and contribute to their success in school, the XYZ teacher training which addresses both areas was developed. In this training, preschool and kindergarten teachers were taught to use Language Support Strategies (LSSs) and responsive child-directed speech when talking about emotions with the children in their care. Whether these educational practices in teacher-child talk improve children’s emotion knowledge was examined with N = 275 children (Mage = 49.86 months, SD= 7.21, range = 35 - 66 months at T1) who were cared for by teachers in N = 16 training classrooms and N = 13 waitlist-control classrooms which were nested in 13 centers. Children were individually tested on morphology, grammar, and emotion knowledge (EK) before (T1) and after the XYZ training (T2). At T1 and T2, teacher-child interactions were videotaped and coded. Single level models suggest that training group teachers used LSSs (input-oriented strategies and stimulation techniques) more often and involved children in longer dialogues than control group teachers at T2. Multilevel models show that dialogue length and feedback strategies at T1 and input-oriented strategies at T2 contributed to the explanation of gains in children’s EK over time (after controlling for covariates). Moreover, teacher’s use of input-oriented strategies at T2 that improved under the XYZ training partially mediated the effect of the intervention on children’s EK growth. In addition, children’s (growing) language skills seem to mediate the effects of these educational practices on their EK. Ways in which educational practices affect emotion learning are discussed.
Keywords: early childhood education, teacher-led intervention, Emotion knowledge, language support strategies, dialogue length, Professional Development, teacher-child interaction
Received: 02 May 2025; Accepted: 21 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hormann, Voltmer and von Salisch. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Oliver Hormann, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Educational Sciences, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
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