Links between teachers’ planning, assessment and development time and implementation of curriculum in early childhood education

This study aimed to examine how Finnish early childhood education (ECE) teachers use planning, assessment and development (PAD) hours across different areas of the national ECE curriculum. The PAD of pedagogy carried out by ECE teachers is an important quality factor in ECE. In Finland, the working hours reserved for planning, assessment and development tasks for ECE teachers were increased from 8% to 13% by ECE law in 2018. Based on the mixed-methods approach, 325 ECE teachers participated in the study. The results of the study indicated that ECE teachers emphasize and benefit most from the planning, assessment and development of pedagogical activities and learning areas in the use of PAD hours. Furthermore, the distribution of PAD hours between different curriculum areas depends on how well PAD hours are implemented in practice.