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Open research questions in Early Childhood Education and Development

1,440 gap statements mined from Early Childhood Education and Development papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 15,397 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.

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What the literature leaves open

  • There is a need for design and measurement strategies that account for the relational nature of ECEC quality. The paper identifies a gap in understanding the ways in which high-quality ECEC can be co-created.

    Community, Children, Child: New Directions for Equitable Delivery Of High-Quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of pedagogical intentionality from the teacher when it comes to planning the spaces and moments for play. The decreasing amount of time devoted to play due to the curricular requirements and the increasing emphasis on child development and learning assessment processes. The historical antagonism between play and assessment in early childhood education.

    Play-Based Assessment: Psychometric Properties of an Early Childhood Learning and Development Assessment Battery · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a need for effective mental health literacy programs for primary school educators to support neurodivergent students. Prior studies have shown significant knowledge enhancement post-training, but there is a lack of research on the relationship between knowledge and confidence. There is a need for research on the effectiveness of presenter ratings in mental health literacy programs.

    Supporting the Mental Health Needs of Neurodivergent Students: Outcomes of a Mental Health Literacy Program for Primary School Educators · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a need to examine the moderating effect of perceived school climate support on the relationship between teachers' growth mindset and work engagement.

    Perceived School Climate Support Moderates the Relationship Between Teachers’ Growth Mindset and Work Engagement · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a need to evaluate the evidence of validity and reliability of the Social Emotional Competence Questionnaire in Spanish students. There is a need to verify if gender is a determining factor in the development of socio-emotional competencies.

    Can We Measure the Level of Socio-Emotional Competencies of Adolescents? · 2024 · DOI

  • The researchers need to address the issue of measurement invariance to ensure that the scale is equivalent across countries. The study also faces the challenge of recruiting a diverse sample of early childhood teachers from different countries.

    Cross-Cultural Validation of Teachers Social Self-Efficacy Scale: Insights from Cyprus, Greece, and Portugal · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a need to understand how school climate, learner characteristics, and socioeconomic status predict student achievement in mathematics. The current literature highlights the impact of perseverance, emotional control, and socioeconomic status on academic achievement, but the mechanisms and contributing factors behind this relationship still need to be examined.

    A Machine-Learning Approach to Predicting the Achievement of Australian Students Using School Climate; Learner Characteristics; and Economic, Social, and Cultural Status · 2024 · DOI

  • There is a need to understand the dynamics between students and teachers in managing disruptive behaviour. The study aims to address this gap by examining the correlation between disruption management and student emotions.

    Disruption Management Interacts with Positive and Negative Emotions in the Classroom: Results from a Simulation-Based Study · 2024 · DOI

  • Future research should also examine the direct impact of early exposure to critical pedagogy on long-term career outcomes in STEM fields. This could include tracking students' progress from higher education into their professional careers, and examining how critical thinking and agency developed in early education influence their ability to navigate and succeed not only in STEM education but in the STEM workforce.

    The Role of Critical Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education to Create Pathways into STEM for Racially Minoritized Communities · 2024 · DOI

  • The lack of diversity in STEM fields, despite the increasing diversity of the population. The need for a critical pedagogical approach that empowers students to persist in STEM disciplines and feel empowered to make meaningful contributions. The importance of embedding curricula that take into account the lived experiences of students who have been and continue to be excluded from science disciplines.

    The Role of Critical Pedagogies in Early Childhood Education to Create Pathways into STEM for Racially Minoritized Communities · 2024 · DOI

  • Future research is needed to clarify the potential role of pretend play for social competence development.

    The Effect of Pretend Play on Children's Social Competence: An Intervention Study in Early Childhood Education · 2026 · DOI

  • However, little is known about the differential contributions of the intangible climates to children’s general and scientific imagination.

    Family vs Classroom Climates: Differential Contributions to Children’s Imagination · 2026 · DOI

  • The findings are limited by self-report data and a single-university convenience sample.

    Pre-service early childhood education teachers’ views and competency levels regarding neurolinguistic-based STEAM applications in phonemic skills instruction · 2026 · DOI

  • However, how these books contribute to the emergence of thinking skills in early childhood remains underexplored.

    Is There a Thought in Silence? Wordless Picturebooks and Critical Thinking in Young Children · 2026 · DOI

  • Conversational turns are an important predictor of cognitive and language development, but little is known about their relationship with socioemotional development.

    Conversational Turns at Early Childhood Predicts Socioemotional Development at School Age · 2025 · DOI

  • Research on the transition to primary school has predominantly emphasised children’s individual processes, leaving the collective dynamics of children’s peer worlds underexplored.

    Children’s peer world during the transition to primary school – A case study of a Chinese australian child · 2025 · DOI

  • Activities such as dialogic reading (ie, shared reading where the adult encourages the child to participate in the storytelling), phonological awareness games, early maths talk, and emotional self-regulation activities show promise, but causal evidence linking specific preschool practices to later academic and health trajectories is sparse to such an extent that their value can be questioned.

    Early childhood learning for lifelong health impact · 2025 · DOI

  • Despite substantial Australian and international work linking ECEC to improved health and developmental outcomes,3-9 the most effective interventions at population scale remain unclear.

    Early childhood learning for lifelong health impact · 2025 · DOI

  • Teachers face challenges in implementing SEL programs due to limited training and support. School policies and leadership can create barriers to successful SEL implementation. Teachers may experience increased emotional labor and instructional workload when implementing SEL programs.

    Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions in Research on Social-Emotional Learning Programs and Teacher Well-Being · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should investigate the long-term effects of SEL programs on teacher well-being. Studies should examine the impact of different school policies and leadership styles on SEL implementation.

    Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions in Research on Social-Emotional Learning Programs and Teacher Well-Being · 2026 · DOI

  • Research advances are required to elucidate child contributions to quality and inform policy and practice interventions that can deliver equitable educational…

    Community, Children, Child: New Directions for Equitable Delivery Of High-Quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) · 2026 · DOI

  • Investigate how to effectively prepare teachers to incorporate SEL in their subject-specific topic, - Examine the impact of SEL on students' social, emotional, and academic outcomes, - Explore the factors influencing the implementation of an SEL…

    Socioemotionally responsive teaching in secondary education: teachers’ preparedness, perceptions, and training needs · 2026 · DOI

  • The sample size is not explicitly stated as a limitation but is mentioned as \"sufficient\" to carry out the EFA, - No other limitations are explicitly stated, - The study only included children without special educational…

    Play-Based Assessment: Psychometric Properties of an Early Childhood Learning and Development Assessment Battery · 2024 · DOI

  • The study identifies a shortage of quantitative methods in ECEC research. The research highlights the dominance of qualitative research in ECEC studies.

    A Review of Trends in Scandinavian Early Childhood Education and Care Research from 2006 to 2021 · 2024 · DOI

  • Further studies on the effectiveness of university-kindergarten collaboration models in other regions. Investigations into the impact of regional resource disparities on collaborative training models. Research on the long-term effects of collaboration-based teacher-training models on teacher competence and student outcomes.

    University–Kindergarten Collaboration and the Development of Dual-Qualified Preschool Teachers: Evidence from a Mixed-Methods Study in Hebei Province, China · 2026 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Early Childhood Education and Development

Most recent work

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Open questions raised by papers listed on this page include: (1) There is a need for design and measurement strategies that account for the relational nature of ECEC quality (“Community, Children, Child: New Directions for Equitable Delivery Of…”, 2026); (2) Future research is needed to clarify the potential role of pretend play for social competence development (“The Effect of Pretend Play on Children's Social Competence: An Intervention…”, 2026); (3) Little is known about the differential contributions of the intangible climates to children’s general and scientific imagination (“Family vs Classroom Climates: Differential Contributions to Children’s…”, 2026); (4) How these books contribute to the emergence of thinking skills in early childhood remains underexplored (“Is There a Thought in Silence? Wordless Picturebooks and Critical Thinking in…”, 2026); (5) Future research should investigate the long-term effects of SEL programs on teacher well-being (“Trends, Challenges, and Future Directions in Research on Social-Emotional…”, 2026). 1,440 gap statements have been mined from Early Childhood Education and Development papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 15,397 papers on the topic; the gaps come from whichever of those papers state one. They are mostly the research gaps the authors state and the papers' abstracts, plus future-work, limitations and challenges passages. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one, so you can read the original claim in context.

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