Gestures in early childhood classrooms: An educational assessment

Date

2026-7-27

Author

Sevinç Özgen, Eda

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This cross-sectional, explanatory study examines preschool teachers' gesture use in early childhood classrooms by investigating how gesture use varies according to instructional context, gesture types, teacher-related characteristics and teachers' attitudes toward gesture use. Data were obtained from two phases. First, the scale adaptation and validation phase was conducted with 237 teachers during the summer term of 2023-2024 academic year. Second, the main study was conducted with 80 preschool teachers during the spring semester of 2024-2025 academic year and included 157 video-recorded classroom activities. Teachers' gestures in video recorded classroom activities were identified through annotation and analyzed using non-parametric tests, negative binomial generalized mixed models and Spearman correlations. The findings showed that total gesture use differed between mathematics and language activities. In terms of gesture types, deictic gestures appeared more frequently in mathematics activities while metaphoric and beat gestures were significantly more frequently observed in language activities. Among the demographic variables, children's age group was significantly related to total gesture use while teachers' age years of experience and education level were not. Additionally, teachers' attitudes toward gesture use were not significantly associated with their observed gesture use. These findings suggest that gestures in early childhood classrooms are closely related to instructional context and children's age group rather than by teachers' individual characteristics and attitudes. Drawing on embodied learning theory, the present study viewed gestures not only as speech accompanying movements, but also as pedagogical resources that may support children's meaning-making and instructional interaction.

Subject Keywords

Teacher gestures, Gesture use, Teachers' attitudes, Embodied learning, Early childhood classrooms

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/119979

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis