Impacts of Pre-Service Training and Coaching on Kindergarten Quality and Student Learning Outcomes in Ghana     

《Studies in Educational Evaluation》2018

Using a randomized-control trial, this study evaluates a program designed to support Ghanaian kindergarten student-teachers during pre-service training through mentorship and in-classroom training. Several potential barriers to improved teaching quality and learning outcomes are examined. Findings show that the program improved knowledge and implementation of the national curriculum for individuals both when they were student-teachers and, the following year, when they became newly qualified teachers (NQTs). There were mixed impacts on professional well-being, increasing personal accomplishment and motivation but decreasing job satisfaction for NQTs. There were mixed impacts on teaching quality, with increases in child-led learning but decreases in some other aspects of quality. There were no impacts on NQTs’ student learning outcomes. The findings highlight system level challenges with both the posting of NQTs and the absence of support in their first teaching year. Implications for global early childhood education policy and teacher education are discussed.  相似文献   

Discrete Choice Modeling in Education: An Innovative Method to Assess Teaching Practices     

Vasilis Grammatikopoulos  Athanasios Gregoriadis  Michalis Linardakis 《Educational Measurement》2019,38(3):46-54

Self‐reported measures are an easy, time‐efficient, and low‐cost way to collect research data compared to other assessment methods. They are, however, characterized by several limitations regarding the quality and the clarity of the data they produce, especially when they are implemented in education. The main purpose of the current study was to use a method called discrete choice modeling (DCM) in education, in order to develop a self‐reported instrument that will reduce the bias for socially desirable responses and to assess teachers’ practices in physical activity. DCM method has the ability to overcome the respondents’ tendency to answer in a socially desirable way. A nationally representative sample of 531 Greek early educators participated in this study and were administered a self‐assessment questionnaire based on DCM. Results showed that the DCM based newly developed instrument manages to assess effectively educators’ practices and provided evidence of the applicability of the method in education. Further implications and future recommendations regarding the effective application of DCM in education are discussed.  相似文献   

The Non-Tested Years: Policy’s Impact on Early Childhood Curriculum     

Jennifer Gallo-Fox  Cara M. Cuccuini-Harmon 《The Educational forum》2018,82(4):475-490

Early childhood and elementary education emerged from a variety of knowledge and research bases. Tensions emerged as they were brought together in a unified public kindergarten through 12th-grade educational system. This review describes how standards and accountability policies have exacerbated tensions between early childhood and elementary curriculum and instructional approaches and impacted the voice and role of early childhood educators. We argue that this is a critical time for understanding and addressing these issues.  相似文献   

Childhood adversity and adult health-risk behaviors: Examining the roles of emotion dysregulation and urgency     

《Child abuse & neglect》2018

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are important public health concerns, with links to higher prevalence rates of both health-risk behaviors and physical health difficulties in adulthood. Research has demonstrated an association between early adversity and long-term health-risk behavior development. The current study assessed the role of emotion dysregulation and facets of impulsivity as potential mediators in the relation between ACEs and general health-risk behaviors, including alcohol-related consequences and risky sexual behavior. College students (N = 668) completed online questionnaires that assessed history of ACEs, emotion regulation difficulties, impulsivity under extreme affect, and current engagement in health-risk behaviors. Emotion dysregulation and impulsivity under extreme positive emotion, but not negative emotion, demonstrated a significant serial mediation between ACEs and alcohol-related consequences. Results also suggest that emotion dysregulation mediates the relation between early adversity and all three outcomes (i.e., overall engagement in maladaptive behavior, alcohol-related consequences, and risky sexual behavior). Impulsivity under positive or negative affect did not demonstrate a mediation effect on the three outcomes. Results of this study highlight the importance of assessing for emotion regulation skills when working with young adults with histories of adversity.  相似文献   

‘Children’s clans’; social organisation and interpretive reconstruction as aspects on development of peer-groups in outdoor play     

Kari-Anne Jørgensen 《Ethnography and Education》2018,13(4):490-507

The focus of this article is children’s self-organisation of peer-groups through play. The play was initiated by encounters with the environment. The use of ethnographic methods in early childhood research has proved helpful to elucidate, interpret, and understand children’s experiences and the creation of meaning in their everyday lives. This inquiry draws on field notes, informal conversations with the children, and photos from a study of kindergarten children’s experiences of outdoor places and landscapes in Norway. Going out of doors together with the children regularly over a period of 10 months revealed aspects of how children’s interactions in play connect to their use of natural landscapes and its place in peer-group social organisation. The data are presented as ‘narrative maps’ and episodes written as ‘emplotted’ narratives.  相似文献   

Development and reliability of the KIM cycling scale – a measurement tool for the development process to cycling independently     

Jennifer Kavanagh  Kieran Moran  Johann Issartel 《Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy》2020,25(2):174-187

ABSTRACT

Background: Cycling has gained more attention as an important lifelong physical activity. Learning to cycle independently without assistance is a milestone for most children that requires time and practice to master. Cycling was recently added to the motor development model and so a valid and reliable measure of cycling ability is required to allow accurate assessment of the skill. Cycling has many health benefits along with being a commonly reported physical activity globally and therefore is an important skill to promote in early childhood and throughout life. To date, there are no measurement tools examining the developmental process to independent cycling in the early childhood years. The current study aimed to develop and assess the inter-rater and test-retest reliability of the ‘KIM Cycling Scale’.

Methods: Development of the scale occurred in four phases: (1) development of criteria and stages, which used observation of children when learning to cycle and expert panels to develop the initial developmental stages, (2) review of instructions and criteria and pilot inter-rater and test-retest reliability, to ensure that the scale could be used as a standalone scale without requiring further instructions (3) cycling intervention, which allowed assessment of the developmental nature of children along the scale as they learn to cycle independently and to assess typical and alternate routes to independent cycling and (4) inter-rater and test-retest reliability.

Results: Ninety children took part in phase 1, thirty-six children took part in phase 2, seventy-four children took part in phase 3 and one hundred and forty-nine children took part in phase 4. All three hundred and forty-nine children were between 2 and 6 years. The developed scale included eight stages in total. The scale was found to have excellent inter-rater reliability (ICC?=?0.97, 95% CI?=?0.96–0.98) and good to excellent test-retest reliability [(ICC?=?0.91, 95% CI?=?0.87–0.94) & (ICC?=?0.90, 95% CI?=?0.85–0.93)]. Typical routes to independent cycling along the scale were examined and reported as being step-wise on all occasions except one where a two stage jump was as common as the step-wise route. Alternate routes were also reported.

Conclusion: The current study developed a reliable measurement tool for assessing children between 2 and 6 years of age on the developmental process to independent cycling. Having a cycling scale will allow teachers and practitioners to assess competence in cycling and moreover, track changes in skill development. Furthermore, parents could also use the scale to better understand and better asses their child’s progression when learning to cycle.  相似文献   

‘Teaching’ the path towards university: understanding student access through storied-futures and meritocratic grand narratives     

Neil Anthony Buddel 《British Journal of Sociology of Education》2018,39(1):16-31

The notion that the stories of our lives shape dispositions towards imagined futures is another lens through which university underrepresentation should be viewed. A storied lens attends to how futures, like university attendance, are storied during childhood to the extent that some youth imagine, and therefore plan, these futures as natural progression. Such was the case for study participants, indicating that childhood stories contain answers for mitigating social reproduction connected to parental education and cultural forces within the home. Examining social mobility through the underexplored storied-futures grand narrative presents unique solutions that lay hidden within the dominant meritocratic grand narrative.  相似文献   

Professional development of kindergarten teachers in Croatia – a personal choice or an obligation     

Ivana Visković 《Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development》2018,38(3):286-297

The quality of educational processes with children of preschool age and long-term educational outcomes are largely related to the work quality of teachers. Lifelong learning and professional development, as predictors of quality, need to be regarded as an ongoing task for kindergarten teachers. Findings of an empirical study of Croatian kindergarten teachers’ views (N = 388) on professional development point to a link between teachers’ intrinsic motivation and their professional development. Motivation explains 46.87% of the variance Personal commitment to professional development. A slight positive correlation was found between the level of formal education and the frequency of professional development (r = .216, p < .01). Although the level of education of kindergarten teachers is not a good independent predictor, it affects readiness to self-fund professional development (p < .01). As for the significance of conferences as a form of professional development, participants of the study identified them as an effective opportunity (M = 4.68, SD = .52), promoting both quality practices (M = 4.69, SD = .54) and exchange of experiences (M = 4.68, SD = .56). The length of participants’ professional work experience affects their assessment of the significance of practitioners’ networking as a way of improving the quality of everyday practices (F = 1.43, p < .05).  相似文献   

The Promise of Teacher Inquiry and Reflection: Early Childhood Teachers as Change Agents     

Isauro M. Escamilla 《Studying Teacher Education》2018,14(1):3-21

In this article, a preschool teacher and an early childhood teacher educator describe and analyze their work co-creating and co-facilitating an early childhood inquiry group over seven years. The group consisted of veteran lead teachers, assistant teachers, instructional coaches, and an outside teacher educator at an urban, public preschool in San Francisco, California. Using the framework of narrative inquiry and portraiture, the article tells the story of the group’s formation, its structure, and its benefits for the participants’ personal and professional growth. The authors argue that an inquiry group is a highly viable, home-grown form of professional growth that relies on the group as a forum for self-study and reflection. The inquiry group provided the teachers with an increased understanding of child development and instructional strategies, a trusting public forum for sharing and validating their inquiry and teaching, and a communal opportunity to make visible the voices of teachers, children, and families.  相似文献   

Parents’ son preference,childhood adverse experience and mental health in old age: Evidence from China     

《Child abuse & neglect》2019

BackgroundSon preference is an enduring phenomenon in China and may often be related to childhood adverse experiences. According to a life-course perspective, adverse experiences during a childhood period may have a long-term effect on mental health in later age. However, little is known about this relationship between parents’ son preference, childhood adverse experiences and adulthood mental health in China.ObjectiveThe study aims to evaluate the association of parents’ son preference and individual mental health in old age in China. The mediating role of childhood adverse experiences was also estimated.Participants and settingThe China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2015 combined with CHARLS life history survey was analyzed (N = 11,666).MethodsMental health was measured by a shortened modification of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale including seven items, and higher scores indicated worse mental health status. A four-step mediating model was applied.ResultsRespondents growing in families with son preference had on average 0.75 (P < 0.001) points higher on the mental health scale than their counterparts, and the effects were consistent for both males and females. Childhood adverse experiences measured by physical maltreatment, emotional adverse experiences and witnesses of inter-parent violence mediated the relationship between parents’ son preference and individual adulthood mental health by 47.87%. For females, physical maltreatment and emotional adverse experiences explained the most parts of health effects of parents’ son preference, whereas witnesses of inter-parent violence was the most influential mediator for males.ConclusionParents’ son preference led to adverse childhood experiences, which influenced mental health in adulthood.  相似文献