Predictors of school readiness in five‐ to six‐year‐old children from an Australian longitudinal community sample     

Margot Prior  Edith Bavin  Ben Ong 《教育心理学》2011,31(1):3-16

This paper reports on school readiness (SR) and its predictors in five‐ to six‐year‐old children from a prospective, longitudinal study of children from eight months to seven years (the Early Language in Victoria Study – ELVS). The ELVS children came from a representative sample of children recruited though the State Government Infant and Child Health Centres at the age of eight months who were studied at yearly intervals with a combination of parent surveys and face‐to‐face assessments. The study had a focus on language, pre‐literacy and behavioural development. In pre‐school and preparatory grade, teachers of the children completed a brief questionnaire rating SR characteristics, including cognitive, language and personal/social competencies. The data bank on these children provided a set of hypothesised child and family predictors of the SR score which were tested via factor analysis and regression analyses. Significant predictors of SR in the equation were evident from two years of age, and were all related to language and pre‐literacy factors from two to six years. Twelve per cent of the children showed language impairment (LI) at five years according to their scores on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th edition (CELF‐4). In an additional analysis we found that these children were significantly lower on SR; they were also of lower social class compared with the remainder of the sample. The most influential factors in readiness for school were child language competencies and pre‐literacy capacities, including phonemic awareness and letter knowledge. Preparation for school involving systematic emphasis on language and pre‐literacy enrichment is recommended for all children before school entry and particularly for children at risk, including those coming from socio‐economic disadvantage and those with delayed and impaired early language development. This addition to pre‐school programmes can have lasting positive effects into pre‐school and beyond, and prevent early school failure.  相似文献   

Libraries and the Affordable Care Act: Helping the Community Understand Health-Care Options,by Francisca Goldsmith     

Margot Malachowski 《Medical reference services quarterly》2013,32(4):505-506

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Introducing touchscreens to black and ethnic minority groups--a report of processes and issues in the Three Cities project     

Jackson M  Peters J 《Health information and libraries journal》2003,20(3):143-149

There is a need for people to have access to health information but this may not be readily available for some black and ethnic minority groups living in England. This study aims to improve access to health information for ethnic minority groups by providing this in their own language, in an audio and visual format through a touchscreen computer. The study was led by health promotion and public health workers informed by advisory panels of representatives from local black and ethnic minority groups in the cities of Nottingham, Sheffield and Leicester. Discussion within the advisory panels and local epidemiological data helped to identify groups to be targeted and priority health issues to be addressed. Other issues covered during development included interface design, language translation and identification of accessible locations. A number of problems were addressed in establishing appropriate touchscreen facilities, mainly relating to producing information in an electronic format for multiple languages and populations not necessarily computer-literate. Three touchscreens, containing information on 10 health topics, translated into five languages are currently installed, one in each city. They are being rotated through a series of locations including a library, GP practice, and a temple. Their use, and satisfaction with use, is being evaluated over a 2-year period, by statistical analysis of computer logs and the collection of qualitative information by bi-lingual interviewers with users, over an 18-month period. Health information can be made available for ethnic minority groups even if they are unable to read their mother tongue. Touchscreens appear to be a suitable medium for achieving this.  相似文献   

Immigrant–Native Differences in Child Health: Does Maternal Education Narrow or Widen the Gap?     

MI Jackson  K Kiernan  S McLanahan 《Child development》2012,83(5):1501-1509

Abundant U.S. research documents an “immigrant advantage” in children’s physical health. This article extends consideration to the United Kingdom, permitting examination of a broader group of immigrants from disparate regions of the world and different socioeconomic backgrounds. Drawing on birth cohort data (ages 0–5) from both countries (n = 4,139 and n = 13,381), the analysis considers whether the children of immigrants have a physical and mental health advantage around the beginning of elementary school, and whether advantage is more pronounced among low‐educated populations. Findings indicate that the children of immigrants are not uniformly healthier than those in native‐born families. Rather, there is heterogeneity in the immigrant advantage across outcomes, and evidence of both greater advantage and disadvantage among children in low‐educated immigrant families.  相似文献   

Growth and diversity in doctoral education: assessing the Australian experience   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Margot Pearson  Terry Evans  Peter Macauley 《Higher Education》2008,55(3):357-372

The major growth of doctoral education in recent decades has attracted attention from policy makers and researchers. In this article we explore the growth of doctoral education in Australia, its impact on diversity in respect of the doctoral population, shifts in disciplinary strengths, institutional concentration and award programs. We conclude that there has been both change and continuity in the provision of doctoral education with extensive variation at the level of practice in what is a reasonably stable system featuring continuing hierarchical institutional diversification. The limitations of available data and issues for further research, policy and practice are discussed.

Peter MacauleyEmail:

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Did you learn something useful today? An analysis of how perceived utility relates to perceived learning and their predictiveness of satisfaction with training     

Michael J. Roszkowski  Margot Soven 《Performance Improvement Quarterly》2010,23(2):71-91

A popular taxonomy for categorizing outcomes of training is the four‐level model formulated by Kirkpatrick (1959). The first level in the model consists of reactions to training. Kirkpatrick recognized only affective reactions, but more recent reformulations of the model posit other types of reactions, including utility and perceptions of learning. We studied the relationship between three types of reaction measures (Kirkpatrick level 1) in six cohorts of first‐year college students participating in an evaluation of an orientation training program. The assessed reactions were amount learned, the usability of the information, and satisfaction with the training program. A substantial correlation (.6 to .7) exists between self‐assessed learning and the perceived usefulness of the information. Usefulness was almost as good as amount learned in predicting satisfaction with the training. The findings underscore the importance of using relevance strategies to make information appear useful.  相似文献