Teaching Interpersonal Problem-Solving Skills to Young Children in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Settings: An Integration of Evidence

Problem-solving has been identified as a critical 21st-century skill. This review integrated evidence on the effectiveness of existing approaches to teaching and assessing problem-solving in an interpersonal context (IPS) for children from birth to age six, in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. A comprehensive search (i.e., PsycINFO, ERIC, Education Source, Child Development and Adolescent Studies) yielded 13,030 abstracts, 38 eligible papers representing 7,627 children, and 26 papers for the meta-analysis. Multilevel meta-analyses for the pooled effect revealed strong relationships between IPS interventions and children’s IPS outcomes, Hedges’ g = 0.76 (SE = .10, p < .001, 95% CI [0.57, 0.95], τ = .26). The evidence suggests that skills training specific to IPS (e.g., brainstorming) and using assessment formats that allow children to generate novel solutions may best capture the learning process. More research is needed to expand investigations to infant and toddler samples.