Parents are usually anxious about the quality of pre‐school education for their children and Singapore is no exception. As such, research into quality indicators of pre‐school care and education continues to receive much attention, especially in terms of identifying which aspects are related to positive outcomes for children, their parents and the policy makers. However, the significance of the day to day pre‐school experiences per se, are rarely investigated. Rather than considering outcomes, this paper reports a study which is concerned with pre‐school teachers' views on selected aspects of their working environment, in particular their dealings with parents, as determinant measures of quality in pre‐schools.
The majority of pre‐school centres in Singapore have a central structure and environment which by necessity adheres to government regulations. Except for teachers' views and feelings about aspects of their working conditions, most of the usual measures of centre quality are regulated. The study is concerned to identify which features of their day to day encounters most satisfactorily contribute to their roles as pre‐school teachers, and to examine any differences attributable to qualifications and experience.
The results show, that whilst there are some differences between teachers according to qualifications and experience, amongst the most positive features are satisfaction with parents' involvement, children's behaviour, and positive support from other teachers. 相似文献
The effects of adult questioning on children’s novel word acquisition during storybook reading were investigated. Three-year-olds were assigned to one of three conditions: vocabulary eliciting questions, noneliciting questions, and no questions (control). General vocabulary comprehension and novel word knowledge were equivalent across the groups before the storybook reading intervention. Children were read 3 storybooks repeatedly across 4 reading sessions and were tested for production and comprehension of novel words in the final session. Children’s novel word comprehension increased more in both question conditions than in the control condition, suggesting that type of question is not as important to word learning as children’s active engagement in discussion about novel words in general. Novel word production was not strongly affected by any of the reading conditions. However, asking children noneliciting questions did appear to foster production of new words more than not asking questions at all. 相似文献
A key tenet of the Home–School Knowledge Exchange Project is that children's learning will be enhanced if the knowledge and experience that are to be found both at home and in school can be brought together. In this paper we explore ways of connecting home and school to support literacy learning at Key Stage 1, focusing on the home‐to‐school direction. We discuss how shoeboxes, filled with children's artefacts, can support a range of literacy‐related activities in school. It is suggested that the extensive diversity of knowledge and interests reflected in the chosen objects presents teachers with an invaluable opportunity to personalise children's literacy learning. 相似文献
Measurement burst designs, wherein individuals are measured intensively during multiple periods (i.e., bursts), have created new opportunities for studying change at multiple time scales. This article develops a model that might be useful in situations where the functional form of short-term change is unknown, might consist of multiple phases, and might change over the long term. Specifically, we combine measurement of intraindividual entropy, a latent basis growth model, a multiphase growth model, and a growth model with covariates into a unified framework that could help accommodate the complexity of patterns that emerge in multiple time-scale categorical data streams. Empirical data from a longitudinal study of young children’s behavior during laboratory tasks designed to induce frustration are used to illustrate the utility of the proposed model for simultaneously describing intratask (short-term) change in self-regulation and developmental (long-term) shifts in intratask change. 相似文献
This research investigated students' understanding of electrochemistry following a 7–9-week course of instruction. A list of conceptual and propositional knowledge statements was formulated, and this provided the framework for semistructured interviews that were conducted with 32 students in their final year of high school chemistry, following instruction in electrochemistry. Three misconceptions identified in this study and five which have been reported earlier are incorporated into an alternative framework about electric current. The framework is grounded on the notion that a current always involves drifting electrons, even in solution. Another area where students' misconceptions were prevalent was in relation to the sign of the anode and cathode. Students who thought the anode was negatively charged believed cations would move toward it, and those who thought it was positively charged were unable to explain why electrons move away from it. Electrolytic cells also proved troublesome for students. Many students did not associate the positions of the anode and cathode with the polarity of the applied electromotive force (e.m.f.). Other students attempted to reverse features of electrochemical cells and apply the reversals to electrolytic cells. The implications of the research relate to students' interpretation of the language that is used to describe scientific phenomena and the tendency for students to overgeneralize, due to comments made by teachers or statements in textbooks. 相似文献
This article presents a case study of 10 high-profile Australian research scientists. These scientists are highly committed to engaging with the public. They interact with a wide range of groups in the community, including the traditional media. They are aware that they are seen as representatives of science at a time when the authority of science and scientists is threatened in Australia by controversy around issues such as climate change and vaccination. Through their experiences of interacting with non-scientists, they have developed views about qualities, characteristics and knowledge that contribute to, or inhibit, positive interactions between scientists and non-scientists. Their experiences and insights highlight aspects of contemporary science that are not generally acknowledged in science curricula. 相似文献
Preweanling rats, 16 days of age, responded to an olfactory conditioned stimulus (CS) paired with a shock unconditioned stimulus (US) with increases in heart rate and behavioral activation. In two experiments this finding was replicated and, in addition, it was found that the form of these conditioned responses (CRs) changed after a retention interval. When tested 24 h after CS-US pairings, the subjects displayed a decrease in heart rate accompanied by CS-elicited freezing. Giving two unsignaled shocks prior to the delayed test effectively reinstated the tachycardia and behavioral arousal CRs. The results are discussed in terms of contextual influences on the form of the CR and how changes in the magnitude of context fear may alter responding to an olfactory CS. 相似文献
Coding strategies developed in the acquisition of delayed conditional discriminations can be assessed by independently manipulating sample and comparison memory load. Two stimulus dimensions that can affect memory load were examined: Number of stimuli in the sample and comparison sets (two vs. four) was manipulated between groups in a 2×2 design, and discriminability of sample and comparison stimuli (hues vs. lines) was manipulated between counterbalancing subgroups and within subjects. The results indicated large effects of sample discriminability but not of comparison discriminability, evidence for retrospective coding. There was also a significant effect of number of stimuli in the comparison set (although only with hard-to-discriminate samples) but not of number of stimuli in the sample set, evidence for prospective coding. These findings suggest evidence for retrospective coding with easy-to-discriminate samples, independently of number of stimuli in the comparison set, and evidence for prospective coding with hard-to-discriminate samples. 相似文献