Educational Research on Early Childhood
Early Childhood Development Survey Database Building Project
●About the Project
Children are the future of the country and the hope of the nation. The physical and mental health and well-being of children are crucial to the economic prosperity and social progress of the country. In the past two decades, developed countries in Europe and the United States have invested a lot of resources and funding to invite experts and scholars from different fields to build a large long-term database on child development, with the aim of understanding the developmental history of children, the care environment and the relationship between the two as a reference for the formulation of national policies. The NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in the United States, the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) in Canada, and the Growing up Longitudinal Study of Australia (GLSA) in Australia. Youth Development (SECCYD), the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) in Canada, and the Growing up in Australia (GAA) study: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), for example. Each of these databases draws on a large representative sample of children in the country, and each begins with a longitudinal look at newborns’ health, cognitive, language, and social development, as well as their home and child care settings and experiences. These databases provide important information for researchers, educational, medical, and social workers, and policy makers in the country. In addition to understanding the history and changes in the various developmental domains of young children in the country, the conditions of the families and child care environments in which young children live, and the long-term effects of family and child care environments on the development of young children, they can also serve as a basis for the foundation of child health, welfare, family, and child care policies in the country, as well as a reference for early prevention and early intervention arrangements for young children, which have far-reaching implications and are extremely important. In contrast, although there is no lack of research on infant and toddler development and education in Taiwan, long-term research on tracking infant and toddler development is rather limited, and most of the studies are small, case studies with small samples in a particular region, making it difficult to understand the overall history and changes of infant and toddler development in Taiwan. The results of the study are small, so there are great limitations in terms of inferences and policy and educational applications. Because of the relatively small-scale study, there are significant limitations in terms of inference, policy and educational applications. In addition, it is difficult to link the data collected by a single research institute to the research of others, and it is a pity that the data cannot be circulated and accumulated. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration, we can collect representative, large-sample, longitudinal, and complete data on early childhood development and place them on our website for use by academics, government, and related organizations and individuals. With funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan), the Center for Educational Research and Innovation and the Department of Human Development and Family Studies have joined forces with scholars in the fields of early childhood development, early childhood education, family education, educational psychology, early care, clinical medicine, and research in Taiwan to form a research team, and have invited senior scholars in related fields to serve as consultants and build a database on early childhood development in Taiwan.