EDPSY 502: Early Childhood Learning

Final Project Prospectus

Dr. Cheryl Gordon
1. What form will your project take? Observation, survey, interview, case study?
My project will take the form of an observation at an early childhood learning center
classroom, focused particularly on children whose ages range from 2.5-4 years old.
2. Describe the issue that you will be exploring. What is your main question
regarding this issue? What directions do you plan to take in exploring this
issue? Why is this issue interesting to you?
The issue I would like to explore is how teacher-learner interactions take place in
situations of conflict resolution, and the effectiveness of the methods of communication
used therein. My main question revolves around the theory of Enterprise Talk, developed
by Tom Drummond (2000), in which children are spoken to in a manner that avoids
giving directions, asking questions (which lack authenticity) or giving explicit praise;
how effective is this method at resolving situations involving conflict?
The question had arisen for me a few times over the previous quarter, during which I was
a substitute at an early childhood development center that implemented the
communicative strategies outlined by Enterprise Talk (self-talk, use of descriptive and/or
narrative language). I am not teaching at the center this quarter, I would like to revisit the
classroom with the youngest-age group (2.5-4 years) and record observations about the
effectiveness of using Enterprise Talk methods to manage classroom behavior,
particularly when conflict arises.
3. Explain how you think this issue and your main question are related to the
theories we are discussing in class. Be specific enough for me to get a good idea
of how you will draw on the readings and class discussion to plan your research,
interpret your data, etc. You may have to skim some of the readings we have not
done yet in order to do this. All projects require some outside readings.

If you are doing a research proposal (observation, survey, etc.),

describe how this study arises from the literature. (If you can't do this, it may be
more appropriate for you to do a literature review.)

In order to plan my research, I expect to use outside sources like Drummond to describe
behavior management methodology; to interpret my findings, I expect to partially draw
on work about theory-of-mind development, such as in our upcoming reading by Flavell
(2000), Development of Childrens Knowledge About the Mental World. He describes that
preschoolers evidence an understanding of emotions as experiential states of persons, as
distinguished from the actions (e.g., hitting) and expressions (e.g., smiling) that emotions
cause, and they distinguish between the subjective emotional experiences of different
individuals(p. 20), which has interesting implications for uncovering potential for
mental and emotional self-regulation in conflict for this surprisingly capable age group.