Introduction

Orientation project is a research and development project conducted in Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan concerning Early childhood Education (ECEC). The project includes comparative research and learning environment development based on research results.

The Purpose of the Project

• To find out what really happens in early childhood education.
• Study how children’s orientations, skills, and peer relations impact the activities.
• Study the ways the educators actions and the learning environment are related to the unfolding activities.
• Find ways to have a concrete and positive impact on the studied action.
• Establish ECEC development based on valid feedback.
• Find tools that help to direct the dynamics of everyday ECEC.
• Make a small contribution to a better world 🙂

The Motives of the Project

• To create practical and meaningful instruments for measuring and evaluating Early Learning.
• To expose the basic ingredients that produce the activities in the learning environment.
• To evaluate the cultural factors by comparing four countries. This is done by doing identical research in both countries at the same time.
• Based on the research results introduce development tasks for the educator teams to solve.
• To disseminate the found and tested solutions and the produced models to solve the development tasks nationally and internationally.
• We seek the ingredients of sustainable development based on valid feedback.

How do We do It?

• 2008 Cooperation starts between the University of Helsinki and Taiwan.
• 2009 Cooperation starts in Finland in Keski-Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. Synchronizing instruments between Finland and Taiwan. Taiwan National Academy of Educational Research joins the research team. The training of the observers.
• 2010 Training the interviewers, interviews of children, the evaluation of the learning environments, and observation conducted. 30000 observations, 1300 interviews, more than 60-day care centers, and more than twenty childminders take part in the research. More than 400 learning environments were evaluated in different daycare centers.  In fall 2010 the data is synchronized between Finland and Taiwan.
• 2011 Reunamo produces 217 development tasks. One task was for one day care center. More than 200 daycare centers and childminders take part in the model building for the development tasks.
• 2012 Disseminating the produced models in 1st May 2012.
• 2013 The research results and the models produced during the process were disseminated.
• 2014 Singapore and Hong Kong join in Orientation project.
• 2015 An deeper, enriched and more wholesome data collection is conducted in four countries simultaneously.
• 2016 The data is analyzed and the found problems of ECE are condensed into development tasks and distributed to the educators.
• 2017 Progressive feedback is established as the guiding principle for ECE development.
• 2018 The most important results and solutions for ECE development are disseminated nationally and internationally.

Measurable Results

The observation instrument and the other instruments are independent of each other, which means that the found connections reflect some real connections between phenomena. We seek a long-lasting sustainable ECEC that can be measured, directed, and changed.