Ventriloquism as early literacy practice: making meaning in pretend play     

Amanda Bateman 《Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development》2018,38(1):68-85

This article discusses how children in New Zealand make meaning in their spontaneous pretend play from kindergarten (four years old) through to their first year of primary school (five years old). The findings discussed here are taken from a wider project investigating children’s storytelling where 12 child participants were video recorded during their everyday storytelling experiences over a three-year period. This article reveals how children’s engagement in pretend play often involves playing out an impromptu storyline where ventriloquism is used to talk objects into life through paralinguistic features such as gesture, gaze and voice prosody. These findings suggest that through the act of ventriloquism in pretend play children learn to engage in complex meaning making activities in playful ways, orally formulating characters and building coherent and systematic storylines that can be identified as early literacy practices.  相似文献   

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   

Gratitude for teachers as a psychological resource for early adolescents: A mixed-methods study     

Indrawati Liauw  Rebecca N. Baelen  Robert F. Borah  Alisa Yu  Anne Colby 《Journal of moral education》2018,47(4):397-414

In this mixed-methods study, we examine students’ gratitude for their teachers and the implications of that gratitude for their psychological adaptation. We report findings that gratitude for teachers (GT) is, in fact, a resource for students facing difficult circumstances outside school. More specifically, our hierarchical multiple regression models demonstrate that this form of gratitude decreases the negative association between adverse life events and students’ life satisfaction. GT also decreases the positive association between negative life events and students’ perceived stress. Then, we use coded material from student interviews to illustrate how they understand the ways that their GT helps them manage challenges in their personal lives. We conclude that students’ GT buffers the negative impact of adverse life events, because it helps students attend to the positive interactions and mentorship they have with their teachers and maintain focus on their future-oriented goals.  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   

新型工业化背景下工业用水效率内涵的解析模型——基于“物理-事理-人理”方法论视角     

张峰  宋晓娜  薛惠锋  董会忠 《科技管理研究》2018,(9)

针对目前工业用水的多视角研究现状及对工业用水效率认知的缺陷,提出了新型工业化背景下的工业用水效率解析的新思路。基于"物理-事理-人理"的系统理论与方法,构建工业用水效率的WSR三维分析模型,并对工业用水效率的物理(工业-水资源复合系统状态)、事理(工业用水效率预警)、人理(工业用水立法)进行多层次辨析。为探索水资源支撑视角下新型工业化发展模式的系统研究提供了分析框架和理论参考,为缓解现阶段水资源危机、推动工业可持续发展提供了新思路,对新常态下保障工业用水安全的相关实践提供一定的方法指导。  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