Child Development and Learning

Our focus is on ways in which learning environments and within-child factors shape cognitive, language, social, emotional and physical development from birth-to-twelve. We are interested in gathering descriptive, correlational and causal evidence. We apply state-of-the-art quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research. We disseminate best practice on methodology especially for longitudinal studies, case studies, and RCTs, and in designing, implementing and evaluating interventions.

CDL’s innovative and influential research is recognised worldwide as outstanding for its theoretical advances, methodological rigour and applications to early and primary education. Our research bridges the gap between theory and practice because it is focused on questions of wellbeing and achievement that matter to policymakers, teachers, families and children. Some of our work synthesises cross-linguistic and cross-cultural trends in the study of children’s learning and is redefining traditional conceptualisations about education and the developing child. Our research has had impact on educational policies in the UK and other high- and low-income countries.

This group is convened by Sonali Nag. 

Research conducted by this group on the ‘Reasoning First’ programmes have been taken up by more schools in the last year and continue to have an impact through the National Centre for Excellence in Mathematics Teaching (NCETM). The NCETM was a partner for one of the group’s previous EEF grants to assess the effectiveness of the programme Mathematical Reasoning in Year 2; 160 schools participated in this project and used the programme. The NCETM is now using it as a preparation for their Mastery Teaching in Mathematics. This approach is being tested in 50 schools.

Some of our research aims to understand how deaf children learn to read and write and learn mathematics in primary school.

Members of our group work in partnership with Oxfordshire County Council to support Early Years staff in improving practice in their own centres along with practice in nearby settings. The programme centres on the use of observations to improve practice, including the use of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-E (ECERS-E) and the Sustained Shared Thinking and Emotional Well-being Scale (SSTEW).

Research on early childhood education has helped shape policy and practice in the UK and beyond. Major longitudinal studies – Effective Preschool, Primary and Secondary Education Study (EPPSE) 1997-2016) and its follow up Study of Early Education and Development (SEED) – demonstrated the long-term benefits of early education, identified effective pedagogy, and illustrated the power of the home learning environment. Evidence generated has helped shape government initiatives such as the provision of free early childhood education to millions of 2-4 year olds. This has fed into the Department of Education initiative, ‘Hungry Little Minds’ – a suite of freely downloadable resources for parents to stimulate their child’s cognitive and linguistic development at home. Internationally, governments and early education providers in Australia, Hong Kong, Norway and Japan have used the tools and findings from the research to improve the early education provision of tens of thousands of children.

2019

• Jelley, F., Sylva K., & Ortiz Villalobos, V. (2019). Supporting children’s learning at home through smartphone apps for parents. In N. Kucirkova, J. Rowsell, & G. Falloon (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Learning with Technology in Early Childhood (pp. xx-xx). Oxford: Routledge.
• Siraj, I., Taggart., B., Sammons, P., Melhuish, E., Sylva, K. & Shepherd, D-L. (2019). Teaching in Effective Primary Schools: Research into pedagogy and children’s learning. UCL-IOE Press. Forthcoming.

2018

• Ereky-Stevens, K., Funder, A., Katschnig, T., Malmberg, L-E., & Datler, W. (2018). Relationship building between toddlers and new caregivers in out-of-home childcare: Attachment security and caregiver sensitivity. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 42, 270-279. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.10.007
• Hodgkiss, A., Gilligan, K. A., Tolmie, A. K., Thomas, M. S., & Farran, E. K. (2018). Spatial cognition and science achievement: The contribution of intrinsic and extrinsic spatial skills from 7 to 11 years. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 675-697. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12211
• Lervåg, A., Hulme, C., & Melby-Lervåg, M. (2018). Unpicking the Developmental Relationship Between Oral Language Skills and Reading Comprehension: It’s Simple, But Complex. Child development, 89, 1821-1838. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12861
• Lindorff, A. & Sammons, P. (2018) Going beyond structured observations: looking at classroom practice through a mixed method lens. ZDM – Mathematics Education. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-018-0915-7
• Mathers, S. J., & Tracz, R. (2018). Early education as an intervention for children looked after. International Journal of Birth and Parent Education, 5, 7-10.
• Melhuish, E. & Barnes, J. (2018). Compensatory education. In S. Hupp & J. Jewell (Eds.) The Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development.  London: Wiley/Blackwell.
• Nag, S., Snowling, M. J., & Mirkovic, J. (2018). The role of language production mechanisms in children’s sentence repetition: Evidence from an inflectionally rich language. Applied Psycholinguistics, 39, 303-325. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1017/S0142716417000200
• Nurse, L., O’Neill, M. (2018). Biographical Research in the UK: profiles and perspectives In: H Lutz, M Schiebel, E Tuider (eds.) Handbuch Biographieforschung. 2. Germany: Springer VS.
• Siraj, I., Melhuish, E., Howard, S., Neilsen-Hewett, C., Kingston, D., de Rosnay, M., Duursma, E., Feng, X. & Luu, B. (2018). Fostering Effective Early Learning (FEEL) Study: Final Report. New South Wales, Australia: NSW Department of Education.
• Smith, G., Sylva, K., Sammons, P., Smith, T., Omonigho, A., (2018). Stop Start. Survival, decline or closure? Children’s centres in England, 2018. London: The Sutton Trust.

Pre-2018

• Nunes, T. & Bryant, P. (2015). The development of quantitative reasoning, In: LS Liben, U Müller (eds.) Handbook of Child Psychology and Developmental Science, Theory and Method. 7. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

11 March 2025: Effects of Home Language and Language of Instruction in sub-Saharan Africa

Speaker: Dr Fatma Abdelkhalek (Faculty of Commerce, Assiut University; Social Research Center, American University in Cairo, Egypt), Dr Ray Langsten (Social Research Center, American University in Cairo, Egypt)

View the slides.

28 February 2025: A brief history of scenario-based assessment and other innovations stemming from the Reading for Understanding Initiative: From elementary to secondary applications and beyond

Speaker: Dr John Sabatini (Department of Psychology, the Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, USA)

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25 February 2025: Developing language and communication in the secondary mathematics classroom

Speaker: Professor Jenni Ingram (Department of Education, University of Oxford)

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18 February 2025: Trusting trusted evidence: Exploring the impact of flooring effects on large-scale assessments of learning

Speaker: Dr Heather Kayton (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)

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11 February 2025: Can Generative AI improve social science?

Speaker: Professor Christopher Bail (Department of Sociology, Department of Political Science, Department of Public Policy, Duke University, USA)

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4 February 2025: Learning to read and write in different languages: What’s the difference?

Speaker: Dr Beth Ann O’Brien (National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

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View the slides.

28 January 2025: Active Playful Learning: Where the science of learning meets education

Speaker: Professor Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (College of Liberal Arts, Temple University, USA)

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21 January 2025: Measuring implicit statistical learning more “implicitly”

Speaker: Dr Holly Jenkins (Department of Education, University of Oxford)

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3 December 2024: Should we abandon universal school-based interventions for mental health?

Speaker: Dr Jack Andrews (Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford)

Recording is restricted to internal access, please email Sonali Nag at sonali.nag@education.ox.ac.uk for access.

26 November 2024: Comparing Early Childhood Systems: Lessons Learned from A Comparative Study

Speaker: Professor Sharon L Kagan (Teachers College, Columbia University; Yale Child Study Center)

Recording is restricted to internal access, please email Sonali Nag at sonali.nag@education.ox.ac.uk for access.

19 November 2024: Exploring the Association between Sibling Relationship Quality, Parenting Styles, and Theory-of-Mind Development in Chinese Young Adolescents

Speaker: Yining Shi

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12 November 2024: School Bullying and the CATZ Cross Age Teaching Zone Anti-Bullying Intervention

Speaker: Dr Peter Macaulay (University of Derby)

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5 November 2024: Bridging developmental theory & SEL practice: Findings from a systematic review of emotion-focused SEL program content

Speaker: Dr. Aneyn M. O’Grady (Global Partnership for Education)

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View slides.

29 October 2024: Learning about the self and others: Social and emotional development across cultures

Speaker: Professor Tanya MacGillivray (Simon Fraser University)

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15 October 2024: Development of a health visitor delivered intervention to promote parent-child responsive-contingent interaction through a synthesis of theory, evidence, and parent and practitioner views

Speaker: Professor Cristina McKean (Department of Education, University of Oxford)

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Taught courses

• MSc Education (Child Development and Education)
• PGDip in Early Childhood Education

Examples of  DPhil projects

• Dominik Bulla: Achievement emotions in Rwanda: an intensive longitudinal study of predictors and correlates of emotions amongst primary students in Rwanda
• Lauren Burton: The spelling of a word does not always parallel with the way it sounds: the importance of teaching children morphological spelling rules
• Yu Chan: Cross-linguistic transfer of phonological awareness in Chinese children receiving English instruction: an intervention study
• Kyle Davison: Academic peer help-seeking and help-giving at Key Stage 2
• Rachel Gardner: Efficacy of a whole class early oral language intervention; impact on language, literacy and educational outcomes
• Haoran Liu: A comparative study of primary school teachers’ identities in state school and private schools in China
• Tiarnach McDermott: An investigation of learning transfer and motivation to transfer from virtual environments in preschool children, and the effects of feedback on these learning characteristics
• Tinya Yu: Bridging the gap for Hong Kong Chinese students of English: from learning to read to reading to learn
• Zhen Zheng: The role of oral form, written form, and meaning in Chinese children’s learning of English vocabulary