Conference abstract writing guidelines
“Well-presented abstracts play a crucial role in stimulating intellectual curiosity, and in ‘branding’ the relevance of new ideas and concepts to an audience succinctly and concisely. How the information is conveyed is a skilled activity that demands focused thinking and clarity in the use of language.”
General guidelines
Give yourself plenty of time to draft an abstract. We ask you to provide a lot of information and keep to the 250 word limit. While it may seem challenging, it is a tried and tested method that promotes high quality submissions and fair review of the research by both the Scientific Committee and, later, by delegates deciding on what presentations to attend.
We recommend drafting your abstract in a word editor offline; this will enable you to check English spelling and grammar and keep to the word limit of 250 words (excluding headings). Copy and paste the abstract form headings (see points 1 – 7 below) into your offline document and use the guidance below to ensure you are providing information that is required for your abstract to be accepted. You must respond adequately under each abstract heading, in order for your abstract to be accepted.
Please note the abstract headings are there to help you write a robust proposal that consists of the required scientific elements and therefore meets criteria for presentation. However, once the abstract is accepted, it will be published (in the book of abstracts) as a continuous paragraph without headings. Therefore, you are required to use full sentences and ensure sections flow from one to another when the headings are removed.
Remember, submitting an abstract is not just means by which you get to present your research and findings at the conference more fully, it is the way delegates choose symposia and presentations they are going to attend. Therefore it is an opportunity to spark people’s interest in what you are doing, increase chances of your presentation to be well attended and you research discussed in more depth.
Please expand sections below for guidelines and examples relating to individual headings.
Proposal title
An effective title should:
• Convey the main topics of the study
• Highlight the importance of the research
• Be concise
• Attract readers
Examples – Requires improvement
“Can the 5 Step Programme for Early Childhood Health Promotion support practitioners in Early Childhood Education and Care settings to promote children’s health and wellbeing?”
“Early childhood educators re-conceptualize their practice and professionalize their educational role through a professional development program in a University Kindergarten in Cyprus”
Examples – Acceptable
“Exploring play-based research methods for stimulating critical thinking in the context of young children and adult interactions”
“Supporting Early Literacy with Culturally Relevant Children’s Literature”
Research Aims
Please state clearly your research question(s). Use full sentence(s) and avoid using bullet points.
Example – Requires improvement
“To enrich and improve the research achievements in the field of preschool education, and provide theoretical reference and basis for the development and utilisation of local resources in the creation of kindergarten environment.”
Example – Acceptable
“This three-year inquiry aims to uncover effective strategies for engaging more men in the early learning (EL) workforce in the United States (US).”
Relationship to previous research works
You are required to identify where in existing literature other information can be found which underpins your area of research. It is not acceptable to simply type the name of an author or a book; you are required to give comprehensive examples of where in existing literature there is information which supports or underpins your study and how it does this.
Example – Requires improvement
“Previous research has studied how preschools have an institutional set of rules of conduct, bound to certain routine activities such as meal-time, circle-time and the linguistic repertoire associated with these. The project were inspired by sociocultural theories of development, learning and play.”
“The study refers to previous work exploring wellbeing from a child perspective and research on digital medias as pedagogical tools. We refer to modern childhood sociology and consider children as active participants calling upon a tradition of child-centred pedagogical practice.”
Example – Acceptable
“Research has shown that teachers have various opinions regarding how much children’s voices should be considered in educational matters (Sargeant & Gillett-Swan, 2015: 178) although partnership with children have been recognised as the heart of effective pedagogy and positive educational outcomes (Dockett & Perry, 2014: 30).”
Theoretical and conceptual framework
You should clearly identify all theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in your research, and the rationale for their use. References should also be given.
Example – Requires improvement
“Despite international research evidence depicting the importance and benefits of combining the early year’s elements with formal education the division within policy and practice within Wales remains. Non formal early year’s preschool education and care provision continues to be a separated entity from education within Welsh Government policy, curriculum and professional development.”
Examples – Acceptable
“The theoretical framework for this study draws upon current theories of learning in early years settings (Nelson), as well as general theories of learning (Smith, Jones and Bloggs, 2003) and learning within communities of practice (Venger).”
“Parents of disabled children do not always get to enjoy these, and this has an impact on how disabled children are able to actively participate and learn within early childhood settings (Purdue, 2009, McAnelly & Gaffney, 2017). Disability Studies in Education (DSE) and new materialist approaches both recognised the centrality of parental perspectives being ‘called forth’ by teachers (Gaffney, 2014).”
Paradigm, methodology and methods
Please note all three parts: paradigm, methodology and methods need to be addressed. Characteristics of participants should be included (e.g. number of respondents, who they were, how they were chosen, against what criteria, etc.).
Example – Requires improvement
“Through a review of current and proposed policy, considering a body of robust evidence in the field of early education and care. This paper consists of a literature review, Government ministerial separation of early years sectors and the implications for proposed educational reform in Wales.”
Example – Acceptable
“The study was conducted within a qualitative interpretive research paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 2018). Questionnaires were filled out by 38 teams in municipal ECEC settings in the Helsinki area. The analysis was conducted through a content analysis within a phenomenological hermeneutical approach.”
Ethical Considerations
In this section you must outline what the ethical concerns were in this study, and how you overcame these, i.e. what measures you put in place or actions you took to ensure that none of the ethical concerns became a reality. It is not acceptable to only state that your university’s ethical guidelines were followed, or that you have followed a particular national/international ethical framework.
Example – Requires improvement
“I have followed my University’s ethical guidelines in conducting this research.”
“There are no ethical considerations in this research.”
Example – Acceptable
“A consent form and information sheet was provided to all participants. Informed consent was negotiated with the children involved and re-negotiated during the time the research was carried out. Pseudonyms have replaced the names of participants. Participants (including child participants) were given the opportunity to withdraw from the study at any time.”
“Although this research is a literature review and therefore based solely on secondary data, ethical consideration has been given to ensuring fair representation of literature from a wide range of sources, with identification of funding sources where possible to avoid possibility of bias.”
Main finding or discussion
Please summarise the key point that you wish the audience to know. Please indicate the value of the findings and to whom they will be of use. If your application discusses an ongoing piece of research, please provide information on preliminary / emerging findings. Please ensure findings correspond to research aim(s) provided at the top of this form.
Example – Requires improvement
“Findings will be discussed.”
Example – Acceptable
“The findings demonstrate that attunement to movement and gesture is a way that adults can create improvisatory and responsive story-telling practices that deepen children’s involvement.”
“The use of visual data collection methods provide opportunities for children to exhibit humour within the Theory of the Absurd, while, the choice of verbal data collection methods can provide more opportunities for data that relates to the Empowerment Theory.”
Implications, practice or policy
Please explain how your research can have an impact on policy or practice.
Example – Requires improvement
“Implication for practice concerning preschool teachers’ teaching is discussed.”
Example – Acceptable
“A list of new methodological suggestions is proposed, which researchers can consider when planning to study young children’s humour.”
“These findings suggest implications for how environments and routines might be used to enable newcomer children to participate in their new settings.”
Keywords
Please enter 5 keywords that best describe your research, in order to help the scientific committee accurately group your presentation into thematic symposia. Your chosen keywords should represent the content of your research accurately and are specific to your field or sub-field of research. Avoid using broad terms like ECE, early years, early learning, etc.
