Comparing multimethod assessment of approaches to learning among preschool children: Direct measure,teacher report,and parent report

A multi‐informant or multimethod approach has been suggested for use in educational evaluation and children's development assessment. However, in the study field of approaches to learning, most previous studies used one method to measure approaches to learning. In addition, compared with kindergarten and elementary children, younger children have received little attention. This study was dedicated to determining whether a multimethod approach (direct measure, teacher report, and parent report) was needed to assess preschool children's approaches to learning. A total of 713 preschool children were enrolled in this study. Correlations and multiple regressions were conducted to analyze the correlation among the three methods as well as their criterion validity based upon comparisons with an assessment of children's early childhood development. The results revealed significant but weak correlations among the three assessment methods. The direct measure of approaches to learning was more relevant to children's early childhood development than the teacher report and the parent report. The criterion validity of using the direct measure to assess preschool children's approaches to learning was also better than that of the teacher report and the parent report. Therefore, the direct measure was recommended for use in assessing preschool children's approaches to learning, and teacher report can be used as a supplement.     

Psychometric evaluation of the Children's Behavior Questionnaire-Very Short Form in preschool children using parent and teacher report

Temperament is a developmentally important construct, hierarchically comprised of several lower-order dimensions subsumed under effortful control, negative affectivity, and surgency. The Children's Behavior Questionnaire-Very Short Form (CBQ-VSF) was developed as a brief measure of the higher-order factors of temperament to aid researchers in understanding the relation between these factors and other developmentally important constructs. In this study, we examined the psychometric properties of the CBQ-VSF in preschool children (N = 277) using teachers and parents as informants. Several dimensions of temperament emerged independently of the three higher-order factors. Comparing the extracted factors to other measures of temperament revealed limited convergent and discriminant validity. Further, similar teacher and parent report factors did not correlate. Based on these findings, it is suggested that the CBQ-VSF be refined to better reflect core dimensions that comprise the higher-order factors.     

Relative efficacy of parent and teacher involvement in a shared-reading intervention for preschool children from low-income backgrounds

The effects of an interactive shared-reading intervention were evaluated with 3-to 4-year-old children from low-income families who attended subsidized child care. The children entered the program with oral language skills that were significantly below age-level as measured by standardized tests. Children were pretested and randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: (a) no treatment control, (b) a school condition in which children were read to by their teachers in small groups, (c) a home condition in which children were read to by their parents, and (d) a combined school plus home condition. Parents and teachers were trained in a specific form of interactive reading via an instructional videotape. The intervention was conducted for 6 weeks, after which children were posttested on standardized measures of oral language, and language samples were obtained during a shared-reading assessment. Significant effects of the reading intervention were obtained at posttest and were largest for children in conditions involving home reading.     

Profile of Australian preschool children with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties

Abstract

Speech sound disorders are a common communication difficulty in preschool children. Teachers indicate difficulty identifying and supporting these children. The aim of this research was to describe speech and language characteristics of children identified by their parents and/or teachers as having possible communication concerns. 275 Australian 4- to 5-year-old children from 45 preschools whose parents and teachers were concerned about their talking participated in speech-language pathology assessments to examine speech, language, literacy, non-verbal intelligence, oromotor skills and hearing. The majority (71.3%) of children demonstrated lower consonant accuracy than expected for their age, 63.9% did not pass the language-screening task, 65.5% had not been assessed and 72.4% had not received intervention from a speech-language pathologist. The 132 children who were identified with speech sound disorder (phonological impairment) were more likely to be male (62.9%) who were unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners, and had poor emergent literacy and phonological processing skills, despite having typical hearing, oral structures, and intelligence. Children identified by parents and teachers with concerns may have a range of speech, language and communication needs requiring professional support.     

Speech development patterns and phonological awareness in preschool children

To examine the association between speech production and early literacy skills, this study of 102 preschool children looked at phonological awareness in relation to whether children were delayed, typical, or advanced in their articulation of consonants. Using a developmental typology inspired by some of the literature on speech development (Kahn and Lewis, The Kahn-Lewis phonological analysis, 1986; Shriberg, Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 36(1):105-140, 1993a), we found that failure to master the early-8 consonants and a greater prevalence of certain types of production errors were associated with deficient phonological awareness. We also found that children who made no consonant errors had advanced phonological awareness relative to other children in the sample. In all cases, both productive speech patterns and speech errors were more closely linked with rhyme awareness than with phoneme awareness. The association between speech production and rhyme awareness may provide some new directions for the early preschool assessment of risk for reading problems.     

Behavior problems of peer-neglected and peer-rejected elementary-age children: parent and teacher perspectives

Rejected, neglected, popular, and average-status children were selected on the basis of positive and negative sociometric measures from a total sample of 870 8- and 11-year-old children. Teachers completed the School Behavior Checklist and parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist for selected children. No age or sex differences were found. On both scales, rejected children were found to exhibit more behavior problems than neglected, popular, or average children. Neglected children did not exhibit more behavior problems than children of average status.     

Assessment of mathematics and reading performance: An examination of the correspondence between direct assessment of student performance and teacher report

Teacher judgments have been identified as a primary source of information regarding student academic achievement. Research examining the accuracy of teachers' judgments in assessing students' academic abilities has shown relatively high accuracy. However, previous studies have relied primarily on norm‐referenced measures to obtain estimates of students' achievement in reading and mathematics. Recent developments in the assessment of students' academic skills, such as Curriculum‐Based Measurement (CBM), provide a direct estimate of students' skill levels in basic areas such as reading and mathematics. The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which teachers' perceptions of students' reading and mathematics skills corresponded to direct estimates of students' reading and mathematics skills. Two second‐grade teachers estimated the reading and mathematics skills of 33 second‐grade students. Results of this study indicated that teachers were not accurate in assessing their students' mathematics functioning. Teachers were more accurate in assessing the occurrence of Mastery mathematics levels in basic addition, but were very inaccurate in assessing the occurrence of Mastery, Instructional, or Frustrational mathematics levels in all other skills assessed. In reading, teachers' judgment accuracy varied as a function of grade‐level material and instructional level. Specifically, teachers experienced considerable difficulty accurately identifying students who were reading at a Mastery level in grade‐level or above‐grade‐level material. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 247–265, 2006.     

Behavioural and emotional problems in hearing impaired children: a preliminary study of teacher and parent ratings

A case study of what appears to be an inclusive classroom in Sweden is reported. The group of children in the class studied was very heterogeneous: five of the 15 children had a disability diagnosis at the time of the study. One aim of the study was to develop a methodology which can be used in order to investigate in what sense classrooms are ‘inclusive’, especially as regards the point of view of the pupils. It is argued that an explicit definition of characteristics of inclusive classrooms and clear‐cut methods to study those characteristics are necessary prerequisites in order to reach valid conclusions concerning what teaching strategies are central to inclusive processes. The data consist of interviews with the teachers and children involved, sociograms, a questionnaire answered by the children, notes from participant observations and poetry by the children. The analyses suggest that the classroom seems to be inclusive, although it is emphasised that this is not an all‐or‐none phenomenon, especially children's experiences are complex phenomena. It is argued that the teachers try to create a learning community where differences are valued. Six teacher strategies emerged from the data.     

Transitioning in elementary school: parent advocacy and teacher allyship

This paper examines how parent advocacy and teacher allyship played an important role in supporting six-year-old Violet Addley’s (a pseudonym) gender transition in elementary school. We first met the Addley family in the spring of 2015 when we interviewed them for a research study on the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) families in Ontario schools. The goals of the study are to interview LGBTQ families about issues that come up at school, document how families have worked with schools to create safer and more respectful classrooms for their children, and share the families’ interviews with teachers and principals so they can begin to think about the ways they can best work with LGBTQ parents and their children. Our paper also discusses what a group of teachers learned about parent advocacy and teacher allyship from their engagement with the Addley family interviews.     

Student–teacher relationships matter: Moderating influences between temperament and preschool social competence

Ecological approaches to preschool assessment, which consider both within‐child and environmental variables, are considered best practice for school psychologists. This study employs such a model to investigate the interactive influence of child temperament and student–teacher relationship quality on peer play behaviors. Parents of 44 preschool children (25 girls, 19 boys) ranging in age from 40 to 68 months (mean [M] = 53.00) and primarily White (92.9%) provided ratings of their children's temperaments on the Behavioral Style Questionnaire. Their teachers completed the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale and the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale. Results indicate that (a) student–teacher relationships characterized by low conflict and low dependence are associated with less disruptive peer play, and (b) the association between temperament and disruptive play is attenuated in low conflict student–teacher relationships. Implications for school psychologists include the importance of student–teacher relationships in the context of preschool assessment and intervention planning. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

美国教师专业化发展及启示

自20世纪80年代开始,美国要求教师专业化,包括前期的教师个体被动专业化的技能熟练模式和后期的教师个体主动专业化的反思性实践模式。比较分析两种模式的各自特点,能给我国的幼儿教师专业化的发展带来诸多的启示。     

Correlates of spelling abilities in children with early speech sound disorders

The correlates of spelling impairment wereexamined in children with histories of earlyspeech sound disorders. The spelling errors of52 children with histories of speech sounddisorders were analyzed to predict theassociation between weaknesses in expressivelanguage skills in early childhood andschool-age spelling abilities. Resultsrevealed that children with preschool speechsound and language problems became poorerspellers at school age than did children withpreschool speech sound disorders only. However, even children with isolated speechsound disorders demonstrated a weakness inspelling skills relative to their reading andlanguage abilities and Weschler Performance IQ.Measures of phonological awareness were highlycorrelated with spelling skills, suggestingthat phonological processing abilities arerelated to the ability to spell phoneticallypredictable words. Analysis of spelling errorsbased on level of phonological awareness skillrevealed that children with preschool speechsound disorders utilize phonetic strategies inspelling phonetically predictable words. Familial aggregation of spelling disorderssuggests a possible genetic component that ismodified by gender.     

The association between maltreatment and obesity among preschool children

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether child maltreatment is associated with obesity in preschool children. METHODS: Data were obtained from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a birth cohort study of 4898 children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 large US cities. At 3 years of age, 2412 of these children had their height and weight measured, and mothers answered items on the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scales about three types of child maltreatment--neglect, corporal punishment, and psychological aggression. The frequency of each type of maltreatment behavior in the prior year was analyzed using categories--ever/never for neglect and quintiles for the other two types of maltreatment. Child obesity was defined as measured body mass index (kg/m(2)) > or =95th percentile. RESULTS: Eighteen percent of the children were obese, and the prevalence of any episode of neglect, corporal punishment, and psychological aggression was 11%, 84%, and 93%, respectively. The odds of obesity were increased in children who had experienced neglect (odds ratio 1.56, 95% confidence interval, 1.14-2.14), after controlling for the income and number of children in the household, the mothers' race/ethnicity, education, marital status, body mass index, prenatal smoking, and age, and the children's sex and birth weight. Neither the frequency of corporal punishment nor psychological aggression was associated with an increased risk of obesity. CONCLUSIONS: In a sample of preschool children from 20 large US cities, maternal self-report of neglectful behavior was associated with an increased risk of childhood obesity, after controlling for birth weight, maternal obesity, and multiple socioeconomic factors.     

Processing speed in children with clinical disorders

The Processing Speed Index (PSI) was first introduced on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale, Third Edition (WISC‐III; D. Wechsler, 1991), and little is known about its clinical significance. In a referred sample (N = 980), children with neurological disorders (ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, and LD) had mean PSI and Freedom from Distractibility Index (FDI) scores that were below the group mean IQ and lower than Verbal Comprehension (VCI) and Perceptual Organization (POI). For these groups, Coding was lower than Symbol Search. The majority of these children had learning, attention, writing, and processing speed weaknesses. This pattern was not found in the other clinical groups. For children with depression, only PSI was low. Children with anxiety disorders, oppositional‐defiant disorder, and mental retardation had no PSI weakness. PSI and POI were both low in children with traumatic brain injury and spina bifida. Implications for a revision of the WISC‐III (WISC‐IV; D. Wechsler, 2003) are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 42: 333–343, 2005.     

Chafing borderlands: obstacles for science teaching and learning in preschool teacher education

Cultural Studies of Science Education - This study examines preservice preschool teachers’ university science education experience. The empirical data are from a research and intervention...