Lack of parental involvement is one of the biggest challenges schools face. Due to lack of support or too much interference from the parent the academic learning process of the student is disturbed and delayed. This also puts a lot of stress on the teacher trying to support the student in achieving to the best of his or her abilities as well as managing the parents on the side. The purpose of this study was to investigate how 1) different parenting styles deliver different results and if that implies that there exists a more effective parenting style when it comes to school performance, 2) if we could make any correlations between school behaviour, motivation, results and how parents approach their children at home, and 3) to further explore how parenting style affects the academic performance of students in a local Hong Kong kindergarten. Therefore the aim was to explain the relationship between parenting styles, goal orientation and academic achievement in an Early Years Hong Kong school setting. This study identified the parenting styles prevalent in the kindergarten and explored which of the four parenting styles from Baumrind (1971) and Chao (1994) are being used by the kindergarten parents. It continued by identifying the academic achievement prevalent amoung the students and correlating it with their parent’s parenting style. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used throughout this study. A group of 60 Kindergarten students were monitored through observation for a period of 6 months in order to track their academic achievement. A survey was sent home and completed by the 60 parents of these students collecting information on parenting style and socio-economic information. Finally both findings were correlated and significant similarities and connections were identified between both parenting style and academic achievement. The study found strong correlations between parenting styles and the performance of students in school especially concerning authoritative, authoritarian and training parenting styles. The results indicated students from authoritative parenting background scored significantly higher in academic achievement while students from authoritative and training background had low performance. There was no significant correlation found between goal orientation and parenting style or academic achievement. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) are a state-level policy designed to assess and improve quality in early childhood education and care through rating systems and financial incentives. Current research suggests that QRIS are not meeting their stated goals of increasing access to quality care and improving child outcomes. This report investigates concepts of quality in QRIS by critically analyzing their use of standardized quality measurement scales. It uses postmodern perspectives and cultural relativism theory to argue for an alternate conceptualization of quality that incorporate community context and multiple perspectives. Finally, this report proposes alternative policies that could be used to promote ongoing conversations about quality within a community context. / text

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My purpose for this qualitative study was to investigate teachers' participation in a collaborative staff development program designed to facilitate reflections about literacy related beliefs and practices. It involved three teachers and a researcher in a four-month Reflective Staff Development Program (RSDP). The RSDP inquiry illustrates the shifts that occur in teachers' reflective language and practice. Three case studies were developed, requiring sorting through the teacher participants' literacy-related beliefs and practices in three research phases: (1) Asking the question: What are the teacher-participants' beliefs and practices in relation to their literacy instruction before, during, and after the RSDP? (2) Conducting the fieldwork using a constant comparative analysis within the RSDP. (3) Analyzing and interpreting the data to find answers to the question. During the RSDP, the teacher-participants revealed literacy-related beliefs and practices within four activities: autobiographies, interviews, group reflective sessions, and literacy lessons. These activities are the data sources, which were analyzed and resulted in the creation of a matrix for each teacher. The matrices showed that, throughout the RSDP, the teachers expressed language or behaviors with new perspectives, termed as "moments of realization." The horizontal matrix dimension is a picture of two extreme perspectives in the teacher-participants' beliefs and practices, the skills, and constructivist models. The perpendicular dimension depicts the teachers' discourse as questioning or not questioning. The plots illustrate their shifts in beliefs and practices. Further analysis of the teachers' interactive discourse demonstrated that their group discussions exhibited common characteristics, which contributed to their shifts: (1) The teacher-participants demonstrated moments of realization that included four types of verbal interactions: discussion of a literacy-related belief and/or practice, discomfort about the belief and/or practice, the moment of realization, and discussions justifying the changed perspective. (2) The teacher-participants' RSDP process demonstrated three periods: "introductory," "breakthrough," and "empowerment." (3) The teacher-participants' shifts moved in a non-linear direction after observing the videotaped literacy lessons. The findings suggest that this inquiry contributed to the teacher-participants' consideration of alternative perspectives and implementation of revised reading instructional practices. These results support the idea that school leaders should implement in-services, such as the RSDP, to improve communication to enhance instructional practice.

In 2009 the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) released their most recent position statement on developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) for preschool aged children. This foundational document provides a framework widely used within the United States for what is considered developmentally appropriate and inappropriate when applied to educating young children. By utilizing a comparative early childhood educational lens this paper examines preschool education practices around the world in order to support, inform, broaden, or challenge these supposed developmentally appropriate guidelines. / text

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<p> With an increasing concern in the American school system being the significant growth in the number of bilingual students, the communication between teacher and student, and student to student, has become a focus of attention. The purpose of the present study was to draw on Sullivan&rsquo;s (2012) dialogical approach and Bakhtin&rsquo;s theoretical framework on the concept of dialogism, using Bakhtin&rsquo;s notions of utterance as the unit of analysis. Bakhtin&rsquo;s (1986) primary (oral speech genres) and secondary genres (narrative texts) were applied to analyze the growth of oral language and meaning-making during interactive read-alouds when carefully scaffolded open-ended questions were utilized. The study approached the field through an individual and collective case study with two dual language learners (Ballantyne et al., 2008) in a kindergarten classroom. Participants&rsquo; utterances were collected using videotaped and audiotaped sessions and were analyzed by applying Cazden&rsquo;s IRE (2001) protocol and a writing protocol. The findings suggested that Bakhtin&rsquo;s ideas of author/hero, double-voicing, and elements of carnivalesque matter in the narrative texts read during interactive read-alouds. The findings also determined that Bakhtin&rsquo;s concepts of (a) One Utterance, (b) Multiple Utterances, (c) Double-voicing, and (d) Revoicing emerged from the dataset. The triangulation of data sources confirmed the importance of teachers examining the texts to be used during read-alouds, and the importance of creating a dialogical atmosphere that generates multiple utterances from its participants and increases oral language skills and meaning-making.</p>

This study investigated early childhood teachers' knowledge of the following four components of the professional knowledge base: goals of geometry, child development and geometry, geometry curriculum and curriculum content, and geometric concepts. Eight experienced early childhood teachers in grades kindergarten through two participated in interviews on each of the four knowledge components. Their responses to interview questions and geometric concept activities were electronically recorded and transcribed for analysis of patterns, trends, or themes which emerged for the group. The teachers knew how geometry would benefit students and could elucidate their own goals when teaching geometry. They were more familiar with their district's curriculum and performance objectives for geometry than they were with state or national goals. They had ideas about what constitutes developmentally appropriate practice, both generally and in geometry education. Child development as it relates to geometry was an elusive concept. Their expertise in this area was primarily based on their experiences as teachers and their faith in the district's curriculum. They were somewhat familiar with pedagogical aspects of their grade level curricula, including expectations, materials, and resources, with shape names being their primary focus. They were less familiar with subject matter issues such as the scope and content of the geometry curricula in the grades preceding and following theirs, important geometric concepts for primary students, and the role of spatial visualization in children's development of geometry. When solving geometric problems, they tended to be anxious and uncertain but overall were persistent problem solvers who willingly communicated their thinking. Their problem solving was marked by doubt, self-talk, hand movements, and ambiguity. In general there was evidence of difficulty with class inclusion, deductive reasoning, and conceptual verbalization.