Teachers' knowledge and approaches to supporting preterm children in the classroom

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Background & aims: Teachers in the UK receive little training about the long-term consequences of preterm birth on children's development. Our aim was to assess knowledge and elicit suggestions for improving educational practice in the US by means of a mixed-method study. Methods: 246 US teachers (92.7% female) completed the validated Preterm Birth – Knowledge Scale (PB-KS). Of the participating teachers, 50.9% reported professional experience with preterm born children. A representative subsample of 35 teachers responded to a case vignette by describing how they would support the child in the classroom. Answers were coded using thematic content analysis. Results: Overall, the mean PB-KS score was 15.21 (SD = 5.31). Participating teachers who had professional experience with a preterm child had higher mean PB-KS scores than teachers without (16.95 vs. 15.24, p = .012). Qualitative responses provided specific content for classroom intervention. Conclusions: Our findings show that US teachers have limited knowledge of the long-term impact of preterm birth. They provided important indicators for the design of targeted classroom interventions to support the learning of preterm children.

Original languageEnglish
Article number105415
JournalEarly Human Development
Volume159
ISSN0378-3782
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.

    Research areas

  • Classroom support, Educational practice, Intervention, Mixed-methods study, Preterm birth, Teacher knowledge

ID: 393156676