Concurrent validity of the Preschool Early Literacy Indicators with a New Zealand sample of 5-year-olds entering primary school

Author(s):  
Tracy A. Cameron ◽  
Jane L. D. Carroll ◽  
Elizabeth Schaughency
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 193-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Steinbach ◽  
Heidrun Stoeger

Abstract. We describe the development and validation of an instrument for measuring the affective component of primary school teachers’ attitudes towards self-regulated learning. The questionnaire assesses the affective component towards those cognitive and metacognitive strategies that are especially effective in primary school. In a first study (n = 230), the factor structure was verified via an exploratory factor analysis. A confirmatory factor analysis with data from a second study (n = 400) indicated that the theoretical factor structure is appropriate. A comparison with four alternative models identified the theoretically derived factor structure as the most appropriate. Concurrent validity was demonstrated by correlations with a scale that measures the degree to which teachers create learning environments that enable students to self-regulate their learning. Retrospective validity was demonstrated by correlations with a scale that measures teachers’ experiences with self-regulated learning. In a third study (n = 47), the scale’s concurrent validity was tested with scales measuring teachers’ evaluation of the desirability of different aspects of self-regulated learning in class. Additionally, predictive validity was demonstrated via a binary logistic regression, with teachers attitudes as predictor on their registration for a workshop on self-regulated learning and their willingness to implement a seven-week training program on self-regulated learning.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonny Norton ◽  
Juliet Tembe

AbstractFor over a decade, the authors have worked collaboratively to better understand and address the challenges and possibilities of promoting multilingual literacy in Uganda, a country of over 44 million people where over 40 African languages are spoken and English is the official language. This article focuses on the diverse ways that teachers promote early literacy in large multilingual classrooms, and how the innovative African Storybook digital initiative might support primary school teachers in both rural and urban areas. We begin the article with a description of our collaborative work on the African Storybook (http://www.africanstorybook.org/) and one of its derivatives, Storybooks Uganda (https://global-asp.github.io/storybooks-uganda/). Then, drawing on a collaborative study of primary school classrooms in eastern Uganda, we analyze four common strategies that Ugandan teachers use to promote multilingual literacy in their classrooms: the use of the mother tongue as a resource; songs and multimodality; translanguaging; and linguistic strategies for classroom management. We follow this with a discussion of a 2015 teacher education workshop in eastern Uganda, which illustrates how the African Storybook can help support Ugandan teachers as they navigate the challenges of large classrooms. We conclude that the African Storybook has much promise for addressing the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Brian Sutton-Smith

<p>In the Spring of 1948 while teaching at a primary school, I observed a small group of girls playing a game called "Tip the Finger". During the game one of the players chanted the following rhyme: "Draw a snake upon your back And this is the way it went North, South, East, West, Who tipped your finger?" I recognized immediately and with some surprise that this rhyme contained elements which were not invented by the children and were probably of some antiquity. I knew, for example, though only in a vague and unlearned manner, that the four pattern of the North, South, East and West and the Snake symbolism were recurrent motifs in mythology and folklore. I was aware also that there did not exits any specialized attempt to explain the part that games of this nature played in the lives of the players.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Elisabeth Mei-Xing Ngan

<p>Information literacy is implicit in the national education curriculum’s key competencies for students, yet primary schools lack an explicit path to develop students’ information skills. The literature shows that school library programs can foster information literacy and improve student achievement, with the principal’s support identified as a significant factor. This study investigates the actions of New Zealand primary school principals to integrate the school library in information literacy initiatives. An online survey collected quantitative and qualitative data from a random sample of primary school principals, stratified by decile rating to reflect the school population in microcosm. Sixty-nine responses were collected and the low response rate meant it was not possible to generalise the results of the survey. Key findings of the research were that a majority of principals supported information literacy initiatives through advocacy; professional development; use of external support; student assessment; separate library budgets; and reasonable library opening hours. A minority maintained a separate information literacy policy; adequately resourced the library with trained staff; or promoted collaborative planning between teaching and library staff through flexible scheduling of class library time. Actions were not affected by decile rating but differences by school size and locale were identified, particularly for small and rural schools. Principals’ perceptions of information literacy did not appear to affect their actions. Suggestions for further research are made to expand upon the findings.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
H. L. Wallace

This thesis is an attempt to examine what is probably the greatest single problem in New Zealand education; the problem of the non-academic child in the New Zealand post-primary school. It is an urgent problem, on the solution of which depends the welfare of a large section of our post-primary population. Our post-primary schools have gradually ceased to be selective and must now cater for an adolescent age group which omits only the most mentally defective and the most physically handicapped. This movement towards "secondary education for all" received fresh impetus in 1944 when the minimum school leaving age was raised to fifteen years. During the last eight years, post-primary schools have been faced with an increasing number of new entrants of a wide range of intelligence and .ability. Among these are found pupils who, under an earlier education system, would never have entered the door of a secondary school. The requirements of the Proficiency examination would have eliminated some, economic factors would have debarred others. Many would have found in a job the success and satisfaction which they had never achieved in a school. Now, as a result of educational and economic changes, these pupils are legally compelled to remain at school until they reach the age of fifteen years. The practice of social promotion in the primary school has resulted in most of these adolescents entering a post-primary school at thirteen, fourteen or fifteen years of age. These are the pupils wbo have been commonly labelled "non-academic".


1938 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 394-423 ◽  

If a new country is peopled with a good stock, its future is assured. Such has been the happy fortune of New Zealand, which to-day justly claims Rutherford as her greatest son. New Zealand was sighted by Tasman and visited by Captain Cook, F.R.S., who stayed long enough to bequeath the flea, the black rat and the pig to the Maoris. The country received its first white settlers in 1817, but the main colonization followed about 1840— less than a hundred years ago! Among the early settlers was one of the Rutherfords, for the most part Scots and a virile border-folk. His son James, and Martha his wife, another New Zealand settler from Sussex, had four sons and eight daughters. Ernest, the second son and fourth child, was born on 30 August, 1871, near Nelson, at Brightwater, and there he went to the State primary school, whence he obtained a scholarship to the Nelson School. About this time his father had moved to Pungarehu, Taranika Province, where he had a flax farm and mill and a rope walk. Rutherford is reported on good authority to have been a normal, happy, unassuming boy, but with unusual powers of concentration — the secret of his success in life. He shot pheasants and wild pigeons, played forward at Rugby football, caught eels and brook trout, nearly drowned himself bathing, took clocks to pieces, made water wheels (like Newton), photographed, loved reading and music; he also won prizes and scholarships for English, History, French, and Latin. He was greatly helped by a good schoolmaster, W . S. Littlejohn, who taught him sound mathematics, and, in a very small class, chemistry and physics.


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