Study on acceptance level of online education during pandemic period among under graduate and post graduate students

This study focuses on analysing the acceptance level with the online education among under graduate and post graduate students during period of pandemic especially during Covid-19. In this regard, student perception with the online education was analysed using the secondary data as collected from various sources. As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the academic calendars, educational institutions around the world have been closed and about 70% of the students are engaged in the online education. Students faced various problems related to depression, poor internet activity and inconvenient home learning environment. The online education by the various e-techniques and methods has proven to a solution for colleges and universities, but still the success of online education depends on student’s perception and satisfaction level. The sudden transition from a face-to-face to virtual space causes a disruption to the students. Based on the findings of these study, the research implications for educational institutions and researchers are discussed.

Relationships between young children’s early numeracy skills and the home learning environment in South Africa

A child’s home environment has been shown to be related to the development of earlynumeracy skills in some countries. However, significant relationships between home learningenvironment and math achievement have not consistently been found, and likely vary acrossdifferent cultural and socio-political contexts. Here we explored the home environment andearly numeracy skills of 187 children (3-5 years), who were not attending preschoolprogrammes in very low-income settings in Cape Town, South Africa. Caregiverscompleted a questionnaire including information regarding experiences of children in thehome; children completed a number identification task, a counting task and the Give-N task. The amount of resources in the home learning environment, frequency of home learning activities caregivers did with their children, and caregiver levels of education and income were not associated with number knowledge. While the home learning environment has been shown to be important for developing early numeracy skills in previous research, this study suggests that factors other than the home learning environment may also be important targets to foster numeracy skills and school readiness in low-income settings in South Africa.

The Role of the Home Learning Environment on Early Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Outcomes in Math and Reading

The home learning environment (HLE) has been considered to contribute to children’s early math and reading development. Previous studies examined the HLE by examining the influence of parent-child math and reading activities on math and reading outcomes, however also parents’ own perceptions of math and reading and their math anxiety (MA) and reading anxiety (RA) contribute to the HLE but the latter factors have been scarcely explored. The aim of this study was to provide a more holistic view of the HLE and its relations with children’s cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes in math and reading at the start of primary school. This paper examined the relations within the HLE, and the relations between the HLE and children’s early math and reading outcomes. Participants were 301 first-grade children and their parents. The HLE was measured by the parent questionnaire. Children’s digit comparison, number line estimation, letter knowledge and phonological awareness skills were measured as well as their math and reading anxiety levels. The results demonstrated a significant association between parents’ perceptions and their anxiety towards math and reading. No significant associations were found between parents’ perceptions towards math and the frequency of home numeracy activities, whereas significant relations were found in the domain of reading. Socioeconomic status was found to provide a unique contribution in children’s digit comparison and math anxiety, while no significant relations were observed between other HLE factors and children’s outcomes. The current study suggests the importance of including parents’ perceptions and feelings to explore the dynamics of the HLE and its impact on children’s math and reading outcomes.

Development of Numeracy and Literacy Skills in Early Childhood—A Longitudinal Study on the Roles of Home Environment and Familial Risk for Reading and Math Difficulties

This study examines the direct and indirect effects of home numeracy and literacy environment, and parental factors (parental reading and math difficulties, and parental education) on the development of several early numeracy and literacy skills. The 265 participating Finnish children were assessed four times between ages 2.5 and 6.5. Children’s skills in counting objects, number production, number sequence knowledge, number symbol knowledge, number naming, vocabulary, print knowledge, and letter knowledge were assessed individually. Parents (N = 202) reported on their education level, learning difficulties in math and reading (familial risk, FR), and home learning environment separately for numeracy (HNE) and literacy (HLE) while their children were 2.5 years old and again while they were 5.5 years old. The results revealed both within-domain and cross-domain associations. Parents’ mathematical difficulties (MD) and reading difficulties (RD) and home numeracy environment predicted children’s numeracy and literacy skill development within and across domains. An evocative effect was found as well; children’s skills in counting, number sequence knowledge, number symbol identification, and letter knowledge negatively predicted later home numeracy and literacy activities. There were no significant indirect effects from parents’ RD, MD, or educational level on children’s skills via HLE or HNE. Our study highlights that parental RD and MD, parental education, and the home learning environment form a complex pattern of associations with children’s numeracy and literacy skills starting already in toddlerhood.

Data Management Plan for Investigating Early Mathematics Learning Opportunities for Children with Disabilities in the Home Learning Environment

Data Management Plan for 2021 NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Program Proposal

Housing for Sustainable Societies. Children′s Perception and Satisfaction with Their House in Countries around the World

(1) Background: Adequate housing conditions and access to basic house amenities are fundamental human rights and indicators of individual wellbeing. The paper aims to present children’s perception regarding housing conditions and household goods and their impact on children’s overall satisfaction with their house. (2) Methods: We aim to determine the contribution of housing conditions and household goods on children’s satisfaction with their home in 31 countries worldwide. To capture differences in children’s satisfaction with their house based on their housing conditions, we analyzed models conducted on data from 10 lower- and upper-middle-income and 20 high-income countries. We used secondary analysis on data from the third wave of Children’s Worlds: International Survey of Children’s Well-Being (ISCWeb) (87,000 children, aged 10–12, worldwide). (3) Results: The results show that there is a link between the material conditions of the family and children’s satisfaction with the house they live in, and also that having a place to study and access to internet are the main factors related to housing that explain children’s satisfaction. (4) Conclusions: Children mostly appreciate the way housing setting and household goods contribute and ensure their proper development through the creation of a stimulating home learning environment. Results are helpful in setting future standards to increase children’s wellbeing and quality of life, and ensure adequate housing as one of the pillars of sustainable development.

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning during COVID-19—A Comparative Study

The pandemic and subsequent ‘lockdowns’ dramatically changed the educational landscape of higher education institutions. Before-COVID-19, traditional universities had choices in pedagogical practice, which included a variety of teaching delivery modes. Overnight, a single mode of delivery became the only option for traditional higher education institutions. All services migrated to digital platforms, leading to a period of “emergency eLearning”. The full impact of this sudden shift to digital platforms on all cohorts of students is still unclear. A measure of disruption to the normal student learning experience, especially for those attending traditional universities, was inevitable. Moreover, this disruption was varied depending on the University’s country and the country’s lockdown logistics. This international, comparative, quantitative research project investigated and explored higher education students’ perceptions of emergency eLearning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experiences of students at universities in three countries were evaluated in terms of four dimensions: (1) home learning environment, (2) engagement, (3) participation preference, and (4) impact on learning skills. The research revealed significant differences between the participating universities students’ experiences. The most important differences were in the ‘home learning environment’, followed by ‘engagement’ and the perception of ‘impact on learning skills’. The differences in the ‘home learning environment’ can be attributed to the differing economic and digital development of the surveyed countries: South Africa, Wales, and Hungary. Finally, different cultural backgrounds suggest a noticeable difference in student engagement, participation, and learning skills.

The digital home learning environment and its relation to children’s ICT self-efficacy

With the rapid progress of technological development, self-efficacy in reference to digital devices (i.e., information and computer technology [ICT] self-efficacy) is an important driver that helps students to deal with technological problems and support their lifelong learning processes. Schools, peers, and home learning environments are important sources for the development of positive self-efficacy. Expanding on previous research, we investigated the associations between different aspects of the digital home learning environment and students’ ICT self-efficacy. The moderation effects of gender were also tested. A total of 651 children answered a questionnaire about different digital home learning environment dimensions and estimated their ICT self-efficacy using an adapted scale—Schwarzer and Jerusalem’s (1999) general self-efficacy scale. Using the structural equation modeling technique, a digital home learning environment containing six different qualities of parental support was investigated. Families’ cultural capital, parents’ attitudes toward the Internet, and shared Internet activities at home contributed positively to ICT self-efficacy. We observed small gender differences, with the moderation effect being nonsignificant. The results help researchers and practitioners to understand how different dimensions of the digital home learning environment support ICT self-efficacy. We will discuss how parents can enhance the home learning environment and how teachers can integrate this knowledge into formal education.

Encouraging Emotional Conversations in Children With Complex Communication Needs: An Observational Case Study

Children with complex communication needs (CCN) regularly have barriers to express and discuss emotions, and have fewer opportunities to participate in emotional conversations. The study explores and analyzes the changes after a training program focused on offering an interactive home learning environment that encouraged and modeled emotion-related conversations between a parent and a child with CCN within storybook-reading contexts. An observational design (nomothetic/follow-up/multidimensional) was used to explore and analyze the changes in the communicative interaction around emotions between mother-child. Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies were used to provide the child access to emotion-related vocabulary. The training program resulted in the mother providing more opportunities to engage her child in emotional conversations, suggesting that when opportunities and resources to talk about emotions were promoted, the child showed more engagement in emotion-related conversations using his AAC system. The mother–child communicative patterns and behavioral relationships observed during the phases are also presented. This case study illustrates the importance of a primary communication partners’ role in facilitating emotional conversations, and the promising efficacy of a training program implemented in a storybook interactive learning environment to promote conversations about emotion-related events while encouraging children with CCN to learn, explore, express, and discuss emotions.

Investigating the reliability and validity of the Toddler Home Learning Environment (THLE) scale

Home learning environments prior to school are well-known predictors of educational trajectories but research has neglected children aged under three. The new Toddler Home Learning Environment (THLE) scale is one response and this paper investigates its reliability and validity. The THLE is an adaptation of the Preschool HLE (PHLE) measure developed by the Effective Pre-School Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE) investigation in the 1990s. The THLE was developed as part of the Evaluation of Children’s Centers in England (ECCE) investigation that followed a sample of 2,608 of families from 14 to 38 months. The THLE was administered at 14 months, the PHLE at 38. The 8-item THLE evidences internal consistency via statistical reliability coefficients and Confirmatory Factor Analysis plus measurement validity via statistically significant and research-appropriate associations with the PHLE, three measures of child development, and child and parent demographics. This paper moves the HLE literature forward with a new parental self-report scale of the HLE that is for use with toddlers.