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Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi

BACKGROUND: Evidence from low‐income settings around early education interventions that can improve young children's development is sparse, particularly with regard to the most marginalized children. This study used a two‐arm parallel cluster randomized control design to evaluate the impact of...

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Autores principales: Jolley, Emma, Bechange, Stevens, Mankhwazi, Mika, Mbukwa Ngwira, Jenipher, Murphy, Rachel, Schmidt, Elena, Lynch, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9541562/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35112380
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cch.12981
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author Jolley, Emma
Bechange, Stevens
Mankhwazi, Mika
Mbukwa Ngwira, Jenipher
Murphy, Rachel
Schmidt, Elena
Lynch, Paul
author_facet Jolley, Emma
Bechange, Stevens
Mankhwazi, Mika
Mbukwa Ngwira, Jenipher
Murphy, Rachel
Schmidt, Elena
Lynch, Paul
author_sort Jolley, Emma
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Evidence from low‐income settings around early education interventions that can improve young children's development is sparse, particularly with regard to the most marginalized children. This study used a two‐arm parallel cluster randomized control design to evaluate the impact of an adapted staff training programme on the developmental outcomes of children attending community‐based early learning centres in Thyolo district, rural Malawi. METHODS: At baseline we randomly selected 48 centres, from each of which 20 children were randomly selected, although data from one centre was incomplete resulting in 932 children from 47 centres. Centres were randomly allocated to either the intervention or control arm. Twelve months later, follow‐up data were collected from 44 centres. At baseline and endline, community‐based childcare centre (CBCC) managers provided information about the centre, and parents/guardians provided information on the children, including the primary outcomes of age‐standardized development scores in the language and social domains, measured using the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool. Children in the bottom 2.5 percentile of either domain were considered to have a delay; a third outcome variable, Any Delay, was developed to indicate children with a delay in either or both domains. Centre‐level mean scores were calculated, and linear regression models were constructed to assess differences between baseline and endline and between allocation groups. RESULTS: Analysis of the difference between baseline and endline measures in the allocation groups shows a non‐significant reduction in delay associated with the study intervention across all domains. Adjustment for baseline characteristics within the CBCCs showed little impact on the magnitude of the observed effect, and the difference remained non‐significant. CONCLUSIONS: Despite no observed differences between allocation groups, the data did indicate a positive change in the intervention groups in both domains, particularly language. Community‐based early learning in Malawi holds tremendous potential for promoting inclusive development and learning.
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spelling pubmed-95415622022-10-14 Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi Jolley, Emma Bechange, Stevens Mankhwazi, Mika Mbukwa Ngwira, Jenipher Murphy, Rachel Schmidt, Elena Lynch, Paul Child Care Health Dev Research Articles BACKGROUND: Evidence from low‐income settings around early education interventions that can improve young children's development is sparse, particularly with regard to the most marginalized children. This study used a two‐arm parallel cluster randomized control design to evaluate the impact of an adapted staff training programme on the developmental outcomes of children attending community‐based early learning centres in Thyolo district, rural Malawi. METHODS: At baseline we randomly selected 48 centres, from each of which 20 children were randomly selected, although data from one centre was incomplete resulting in 932 children from 47 centres. Centres were randomly allocated to either the intervention or control arm. Twelve months later, follow‐up data were collected from 44 centres. At baseline and endline, community‐based childcare centre (CBCC) managers provided information about the centre, and parents/guardians provided information on the children, including the primary outcomes of age‐standardized development scores in the language and social domains, measured using the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool. Children in the bottom 2.5 percentile of either domain were considered to have a delay; a third outcome variable, Any Delay, was developed to indicate children with a delay in either or both domains. Centre‐level mean scores were calculated, and linear regression models were constructed to assess differences between baseline and endline and between allocation groups. RESULTS: Analysis of the difference between baseline and endline measures in the allocation groups shows a non‐significant reduction in delay associated with the study intervention across all domains. Adjustment for baseline characteristics within the CBCCs showed little impact on the magnitude of the observed effect, and the difference remained non‐significant. CONCLUSIONS: Despite no observed differences between allocation groups, the data did indicate a positive change in the intervention groups in both domains, particularly language. Community‐based early learning in Malawi holds tremendous potential for promoting inclusive development and learning. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2022-02-09 2022-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9541562/ /pubmed/35112380 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cch.12981 Text en © 2022 The Authors. Child: Care, Health and Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Jolley, Emma
Bechange, Stevens
Mankhwazi, Mika
Mbukwa Ngwira, Jenipher
Murphy, Rachel
Schmidt, Elena
Lynch, Paul
Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi
title Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi
title_full Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi
title_fullStr Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi
title_full_unstemmed Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi
title_short Measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: Findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural Malawi
title_sort measuring the impact of a training intervention for early childhood centre staff on child development outcomes: findings from a cluster randomized control field trial in rural malawi
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9541562/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35112380
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cch.12981
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