Procedures
MAY
The TIK-KT intervention is a professional training for teachers. Kindergarten leaders and the lead pedagogue attended 2-day (14-hour) professional training in TIK to learn about emotion coaching and how to use it with children (December 2019). This training provided them with skills to supervise and support teachers (as resource persons) in their application of emotion coaching in their interactions with children. The training was provided in English by one of the program authors, Havighurst. The kindergarten teachers attended a one-day training (7 hours) on how to use emotion coaching and skills to understand and regulate their emotions (January/February 2020 in Oslo, Bergen, or Trondheim). This training was provided by three Norwegian TIK trainers, all with master’s or equivalent degrees in early education/clinical psychology. After the training day for teachers, the leaders or lead pedagogue conducted fortnightly supervision sessions with teachers at their kindergartens to practice emotion coaching and assist them in using the skills with the children in their care (January through May 2020). Kindergarten leaders or the lead pedagogue then received a half-day booster session with Norwegian TIK trainers to address issues and challenges they encountered in supporting teachers in using emotion coaching skills (March 2020). Structured manuals were provided for all kindergarten staff, and support material was also provided in an online format.Participants were selected by convenience sampling. The first author of this paper attended the two-day professional training on TIK, provided information about the study, and invited to participation in interviews about the participants’ motivation for implementing TIK-KT. Six people were sampled, but three were not included due to lack of contact information and late responses. To interview a variety of kindergarten staff and to obtain more interviewees, a random selection of intervention kindergartens was called by telephone to invite others to participate. Those who accepted the invitation were given the plain language statement and consent via e-mail. Four persons gave their consent. From the seven interview subjects, six interviews preintervention and five interviews postintervention were obtained, with three missing interviews due to technical problems with audio recording. Apart from being leaders or teachers in one of 22 FUS kindergartens, the sample of interviewees varied regarding age, gender, education, and work experience. Further, out of the seven interviewees, three were kindergarten teachers, three were kindergarten leaders, and one was an appointed resource person with the task of supporting teachers. Of the four interviewees who participated at both interview times, three were kindergarten leaders, and one was a kindergarten teacher. Five of seven interviewees were employed at different kindergartens. One person was male, and six persons were female.All interviews were conducted by telephone for convenience. The interviewees were at different sites across Norway, and there was only one interviewer. In addition, restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to meet in person. The interviews were conducted by the first author and audio recorded with a mobile phone application. The interviewees were encouraged to sit in a private area during the interview, but there was no other control of the presence of nonparticipants. The interviews were administered twice: in December 2019 before the one-day training of teachers (T1) and in June 2020 after six months of implementation (T2). The settings for data collection varied. For T1, most interviews were recorded in study rooms on the UiO campus, one was recorded in a nondriving car, and two were recorded in a quiet setting at home. For T2, all interviews were conducted in a quiet setting at home. A semi-structured interview guide was developed for both interview sessions. The interview guides had thematic and dynamic questions connected to the research questions, and the guides were based on the TPB (for example, “Would you say that there are any norms/attitudes in your kindergarten regarding starting/implementing new interventions?”). The interview guide for T1 differed according to the role of the informants (“teachers in your kindergarten”/”your colleagues”). None of the interviews lasted more than thirty minutes and field notes were used.All interviews were transcribed. Repeat interviews and returning transcripts for participants to check was not undertaken due to practical limitations. During the interviews, the participants mentioned many of the same themes and although we cannot be certain, data saturation may have been reached.