Digital play as a means to develop children’s literacy and power in the Swedish preschool

Abstract

This paper presents different angles on the subject of digital play as a means to develop children’s literacy and power, using an online ethnographical study of Swedish preschool teachers’ discussions in informal online forums. Question posts (n = 239) were analysed using the Technological Pedagogical Knowledge framework and the Caring, Nurturing and Teaching framework, with the aim of understanding how teachers intended to support children’s literacy development with tablets. Literacy development can be understood as a social practice that needs to develop along with changes in society’s demands on citizens. The results presented indicate that school subject oriented skills are predominantly present in the mind-set of these preschool teachers. When digital play is increasingly used for pedagogical purposes in preschools, that also means that preschools have expanded their opportunities to work with children’s literacy development. For preschool teachers, it is important to discuss how literacy development can be supported in a contemporary media landscape.     

Different influence of contextual educational factors on boys＇ and girls＇ reading achievement

The results of lEA （The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement） PIRLS 2006 （Progress in International Reading Literacy Study） has showed that Latvia has the 6th largest gender gap in reading literacy scores and that is an indication of a serious problem of education in this country. The purpose of the paper is to find out reasons behind boys＇ low achievement to help improve their reading literacy. The proposed hypothesis is that boys and girls are differently affected by the same factors. If that is so, teachers, parents and other education practitioners should be aware of this fact to adapt reading literacy studies for both genders at maximum efficiency. In this research, PILRS 2006 data are used and different structural equation models are created to find out which factors have the most influence on boys＇ reading achievement. Structural equation modeling （SEM） is based on achievement scores and student and parent questionnaire data. The model formed using all population data was applied to boys＇ and girls＇ data separately to observe different influence of the same factors on students reading achievement scores. The comparison of standardized coefficients of structural equation model among five countries （Spain, Russian Federation, Lithuania, Latvia and Trinidad and Tobago） has been performed. Running the same model over different boys＇ and girls＇ data of different countries has showed that the strengths of relationships among the variables are similar. It was expected to observe noticeable differences between SEM coefficients of boys＇ and girls＇ data, but it turned out that big gender differences in reading achievement does not mean big differences in standardized coefficients of structural equation model and vice versa. It is found that school environment has greater impact on boys reading literacy.     

Where Are the Global Rankings Leading Us? An Analysis of Recent Methodological Changes and New Developments

This article is based on the analysis of the changes in global university rankings and the new ‘products’ based on rankings data in the period since mid-2011. It is a summary and continuation of the European University Association (EUA)-commissioned report ‘Global University Rankings Their Impact, Report II’ which was launched in April 2013. It covers the changes in the ranking methodologies which have been the most visible in the CWTS Leiden Ranking and Webometrics and which have replaced some indicators with newly designed ones. Changes have been made in other rankings as well, but they are less visible. A new U21 ranking was launched in 2012. It is an attempt to rank national higher education systems rather than individual universities. New rankings by conventional ranking providers have demonstrated that in reputation rankings or reputation indicators the scores drop even more sharply than in the most élitist rankings and therefore can be used for even narrower groups of universities. Several ranking providers have started their own data collections and combine ranking data with the data from the newly established data collections and use them for several multi-indicator classifications or profiling tools. QS has been most productive and has added not only classification and profiling tools, but has also launched a ranking of student cities, and ‘stars’ that universities can obtain. Generally, the rankings’ impact is growing. Let us see where it will bring us. At the same time, some rankings providers have changed language and explain the biases, flaws and misunderstandings created through misuse of rankings or using ranking indicators without proper knowledge.     

Stem-and-Leaf Plots in the Primary Grades

At first glance, the thought of primary children working with stem-and-leaf plots might seem a radical idea, since such representations are often associated with secondary school. The purpose of this paper is to show how young children can use such representations as a major tool in their educational development. However, before discussing this particular statistical technique, an overview of the role of statistics in the primary programme is included.