This thesis explores the experiences of both early school leavers and their teachers when a group of eight young people were invited to have greater involvement in their learning. The study is based in a literacy programme within a youth service setting in rural Ireland. The research is situated outside the mainstream school system and this affords a unique chance to see how the young people managed when they were given the chance to have more involvement in their learning, once they had rejected mainstream education. My previous research within the organisation indicates that young people consider that they are capable of taking on more challenging curricula and are keen to pursue higher level qualifications. The study took place between September 2010 and May 2011. The study aimed to develop and evaluate a new approach to a current literacy programme using constructivist teaching strategies which, while supporting increased learner involvement, also offered a higher level literacy certificate. An action research design was used and this thesis follows stages two, three and four of the first iterative cycle. Building on a conceptual framework which links the literatures of early school leaving and the learning theories of constructivism and self-determination, a qualitative analysis was undertaken comprising in depth interviews with young people and staff, field diaries, learner journals, questionnaires and participant observation. Findings show that despite early school leavers having difficult backgrounds, they respond positively when they are offered greater involvement in their learning. This is further enhanced by teacher support and expectation. Findings also suggest that early school leavers have gaps in their literacy skills that need to be addressed when preparing for higher level qualifications. Along with the need for greater learner involvement, it is essential that teaching institutions provide these young people with access to higher level programmes and a structured route to achieving relevant and more useful qualifications. In this way, it is possible to instill the confidence needed to attain significantly higher levels of learning.

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder of known genetic origin. A characteristically uneven cognitive profile in WS, with a marked contrast between poor small-scale visuospatial ability relative to stronger verbal ability, is well documented. Recent findings demonstrate visuospatial deficits pervade to large-scale navigation abilities in this group. Experimental studies presented in this thesis investigate the nature of large-scale visuospatial impairment in WS at the level of behaviour, as well as the genetic contributions to the WS visuospatial profile. As an important basis on which to understand the nature of atypical development in WS, the thesis also examines the development of large-scale spatial cognition in typicallydeveloping (TD) children. Developmental changes in the use of different spatial frames of reference to mentally represent spatial information both on small-scale tasks and during navigation in large-scale virtual environments were observed in TD children between 6 and 8 years of age, with an adult-like pattern of performance acquired between 8 and 10 years. The findings in TD children provide novel insight into the nature of processes underlying the use of different aspects of spatial knowledge for navigation. In WS, impairments in both egocentric and allocentric spatial reference frames result in severe detriment to spatial processing at both small- and large scales. However, the data suggest that not all aspects of large-scale spatial knowledge are equally impaired in WS, highlighting the multifaceted nature of visuospatial cognition, and extending our understanding of the profile of relative strengths and weaknesses within the visuospatial cognitive domain in this disorder. An examination of the genetic contribution to the WS visuospatial phenotype from two individuals with partial WS genetic deletions further highlights the diverse nature of visuospatial cognition. These findings provide insight both into the dynamic development of visuospatial cognition in typical development, and the atypical visuospatial phenotype in WS.

The importance of research on the unique nature of the communication supporting environment in nurseries has been heightened by growing evidence of the significance of early language skills for later academic and social development. This study focussed on children’s language use during small group times. Opportunities to hear and practise language were examined, to uncover variation in conversational experiences for children with differing language needs. Participants were a nursery key worker and 19, three- to four-year olds in two cohorts. In this mixed-method study, different measures were used to examine the relationship between participation and language level. Quantitative analysis of interaction rates was made from video recordings of small group conversations. This was followed by detailed qualitative examination of talk during episodes of more sustained conversation. Children’s language levels were measured using the CELF Pre-school (2) UK and a narrative assessment. Questionnaires about children’s verbal participation were also completed by practitioners and parents. Differences were revealed in affordance of opportunity for children according to language level. Children’s interaction rates were positively correlated with scores on the CELF Pre-school (2) UK at the start and 18-months later. Topic of conversation, patterns of turn-taking and repair were associated differently with participation for children according to language level. Analysis showed patterns of both formal and informal talk. Combining features from each was found to be associated with episodes of sustained conversation. Questionnaire responses confirmed differences in children’s likelihood of participation in small group conversations. Findings support the role for small group times as a forum for development of speech, language and communication, facilitating opportunities for children differently according to their language needs. This has important implications for practice in supporting children to make the transition from informal to formal talk in the educational setting.

This study evaluated a short-term Cognitive Behavioural Intervention (CBI) delivered by school staff to whole classes, designed to promote self-esteem. The research had a practical purpose, as the intervention had been implemented within multiple schools without being evaluated. A mixed methods design was employed to assess the impact of the CBI and to explore why this impact was occurring, to inform future use. 171 pupils in years 5 and 6 from three mainstream schools were criterion-sampled, 108 in the intervention group (4 classes selected by school staff) and 63 in the wait-list control group (3 classes, matched by school and year). All pupils completed scales from the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Children’s Automatic Thoughts (CAT) scale at pre-intervention and post-intervention. One class also completed the scales for a third, follow-up occasion. Qualitative data were collected through semistructured interviews with 3 school staff and 6 pupils. In addition, school staff were observed delivering the intervention to ascertain implementation fidelity. Results suggest that the CBI had no impact on pupils’ global self-esteem or peer related self-concept, but it had a negative impact on pupils’ school self-concept. There were no immediate impacts on Negative Automatic Thoughts (NATs), except for pupils with below-average academic attainment who showed reductions in NATs at postintervention. Follow-up data showed positive impacts on NATs, peer and school selfconcept two months after the intervention, although this lacked a control comparison. Thematic analyses of the qualitative data revealed factors influencing the impact of the intervention included its universal design, the involvement of school systems and individual pupil differences. The study concluded that the intervention has value as a psycho-educational learning tool, but does not directly improve global self-esteem. There are implications for the role of educational psychologists in supporting schools to critically select and implement interventions.

In the socio-ecological perspective, human behaviour is regarded as determined by the characteristics of an individual, the characteristics of his/her environment and their reciprocal interactions. This perspective assumes that situational factors play a significant part in these interactions. The present study was based on this perspective and sought to investigate environmental factors associated with EBD (emotional and behavioural difficulties). It aimed to provide evidence of the need to take EBD seriously in Korea and to find out environmental factors in families and schools which are associated with EBD. The low agreement usually found between parents' and teachers' ratings of children's EBD has been explained in terms of the 'situation-specificity' of EBD. Another aim was, therefore, to explore the extent of the situation-specificity of EBD. Two studies were carried out. The first study was to investigate the prevalence rate of EBD through an epidemiological approach in Korean primary school children and to examine the relationships of EBD to structural factors in family and school. The second study examined relationships of EBD to family and classroom psychosocial functioning in conjunction with the exploration of the low agreement between parents' and teachers' ratings. There were 840 children aged from 7 to 12 in the first study and 448 12-year-old children in the second study. Children's behaviour was rated by their parents and teachers using Rutter's Child Behaviour Questionnaire (CBQ) in the first study, using a Korean version of CBQ in the second study. Family functioning was assessed by children and their mothers using a Korean version of Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale-III. Classroom functioning was assessed by children and their teachers using a Korean short version of Classroom Environment Scale. The Korean versions of CBQ, FACES-III and CES were developed in the pilot study for the second study. A significant number of Korean children were screened as having EBD: 29% with English cut-off points, 17% with Korean cut-off points. However, children with EBD pervasively in both settings were relatively few: 4.3% and 2.1% respectively. More boys showed EBD than girls. EBD was associated with children's academic achievements, existence of siblings, family style, fathers' education, parents' involvement in their child's education, and class size. EBD tended to be higher with lower levels of family cohesion, adaptability and classroom interpersonal relationships; and the relationships appeared to be stronger when EBD was severe or environmental functioning was extreme. However, no relationship was found between EBD and classroom control. Teachers' behaviour ratings were more consistently and highly related to family functioning as well as classroom functioning in comparison with mothers' ratings. This finding supports the concept of open systems, which assumes that what happens in one context may affect behaviour in other systems, and the view that there may be some continuity across situations as well as some specificity to a certain situation in children's behaviour. Furthermore, this finding calls into question a strong version of situationspecificity in regard to the low agreement between teachers' and parents' behaviour ratings. It might be due partly to the difference in the validity of ratings rather than due only to the 'situation-specificity' of EBD. The possibility of higher validity of teachers' ratings was also found in the first study: the percentage of children who were identified as having EBD on CBQ and as needing professional help was much higher by teachers than parents. Compared with adults, children's perceptions of environmental functioning were more consistently and highly associated with EBD. This finding may suggest that how children perceive their environment is as important for their emotional and social development as the actual functioning. Children with EBD would like their families to be more cohesive than non-EBD children. This study leads to further questions about the validity of FACES-III and CES as instruments to assess family and classroom functioning in Korea. The necessity of investigating whether there are other aspects of family and classroom psychosocial functioning which are more related to children's EBD than the affective and control aspects was also suggested. In addition, the results indicate the importance of examining the threshold of EBD when an instrument is used in different cultures. This study also underlines the need to examine environmental factors associated with EBD jointly in both family and school settings.

This thesis focuses on perceptuo—motor competence in children born prematurely. The cohort, now 6 years of age, was highly selected and consisted of 183 children whose early cranial ultrasound appearance was well documented. In the literature review issues regarding the detection and classification of brain lesions, the outcome of follow up studies, and the description, identification and sub—grouping of children with perceptuo— motor problems are discussed. This is followed by an outline of the study undertaken and the results obtained. Overall differences in the performance on the neurological, perceptuo—motor, cognitive, behaviour and self—concept measures between the premature and reference groups are described. Prematurely born children showed more minor neurological signs and were less competent in age—appropriate perceptuo—motor tasks. Cognitive ability was generally lower in this group, but no differences with respect to the behaviour and self— concept measures were found. The relationship between early brain lesion and later perceptuo—motor competence was explored. Major haemorrhagic and/or ischaemic lesions were related to poor outcome. The prognosis of children with minor haemorrhagic and/or ischaemic lesions was more favourable although these children are clearly at an increased risk for more subtle perceptuo—motor problems as they grow up. The analyses suggested that among the group of children with perceptuo—motor problems six separate sub—groups existed. In addition to two sub—groups whose profile showed either average or below average performance across tasks, there were four sub— groups who showed specific problems with dynamic or static balance, ball skills or constructional tasks, respectively. Finally, the characteristics of children with poor constructional ability were examined in more detail. Using performance on a specially for this study designed form board task as an example, it was shown that in addition to quantitative profiles, qualitative descriptions of performance are important to gain a better understanding of subtle perceptuo—motor impairment in individual children.

Although statistics imply that youth crime is falling, fear of crime amongst young people is prevalent. Young people living in high crime neighbourhoods are more likely to become involved with crime - as victim or offender - and to experience increased psychological stressors such as fear. Even though schools have almost universal access to young people, in the UK their role in crime prevention is in its infancy. In contrast, the positive impact of crime prevention interventions in countries including America and Australia are well documented. By analysing the perspectives of a range of young people and adult stakeholders in an inner-city community, this study contributes to knowledge about how to strengthen the role of the school in youth crime prevention. A qualitative mixed-methods design was used to allow full exploration of the topic. Young people in Years 5-9 took part in mixed gender, school-based, focus groups. Adult stakeholders, including primary and secondary school staff, the police and youth workers, shared their views in semi-structured interviews or focus groups. Each participant lived or worked in the research ward. Each interview and focus group was transcribed and analysed along three thematic analyses; ‘context of crime for young people’, ‘context of youth crime for adult community stakeholders’ and possible future ‘ways of working’. Various themes and subthemes allowed for further exploration of the topic. The findings highlight how regularly young people in high crime inner-city communities are exposed to crime, and how aware they are of it. Participants report that young people are not getting enough crime prevention support in school, and that schools could and should be doing more. The limited support available to young people is piecemeal, and tends to be reactive not preventative. This study highlights the need for increased joined-up working between youth services and education. There is also a need for a wider range of provision and better use of existing resources in such communities to better meet the holistic needs of young people and protect them from crime. Although there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to improving crime prevention support in schools, the findings can be applied to other contexts. The study outlines the implications for professionals in these communities, including the possible role for educational psychologists.

This small-scale, narrative study explores two concepts that aid understanding of the school experiences of young people who have offended. The first focuses on the concept of borders between the multiple worlds that the six young people in this study live within and between (Phelan, Locke-Davidson & Cao-Yu, 1993). This is combined with the concept of complementarity between Illeris’ (2007) learning dimensions (content, incentive and interaction) in order to explore the narrative co-constructions of the school experiences of these young people who have offended, and the strength of their self-identities in relation to learning across time and context. The study draws on Hiles and Čermák’s (2007a) Narrative Oriented Inquiry methodology and employs a three-step analysis of the six interview transcripts in order to carry out a categorical content and form analysis of the interview data. The concepts of borders and learning dimensions were common across the unique stories of the young people interviewed, and enabled the development of a typology of narrative resources, including an Instability Narrative, an Incompatibility Narrative and a Reformation Narrative. A typology renders orderly what initially seems chaotic (Frank, 2013) and can demonstrate how people are enabled to create, strengthen and weaken their learning identities by utilising available narrative resources. This typology provides an alternative method of understanding how young people actively choose, or not, to adopt canonical, institutional narratives within the education and youth justice systems they are part of and in the process of doing so strengthen or weaken their self-identities in relation to learning. The implications of this are discussed in terms of how Educational Psychologists might support professionals working with young people who have offended in developing an active approach to listening to the complex, eco-systemic narrative threads running through the stories they tell of their experiences, in order to facilitate strengthened learning identity and engagement in learning.

Despite growing evidence informing educators for effective reading comprehension (RC) teaching, it is unclear how extensively this evidence base is implemented in practice and teacher self-efficacy can have a role to play. Recent estimates suggest about 15% of U.K. students are below expected levels of attainment by the end of KS2. While Educational Psychologists can support the implementation of evidence base in classrooms to raise literacy standards, there is a lack of U.K. studies that examined the extent that the evidence base in RC instruction is implemented in practice and how confident teachers feel about implementing them. The aims of this study were three-fold. Firstly, to explore the extent that U.K. teachers used evidence-based practices when teaching RC. Secondly, to investigate teacher confidence levels in using them. Lastly, to examine the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and the extent they used evidence-based RC instructional practices. A mixed methods non-experimental fixed research design was used. The questionnaire sent out to 379 KS2 teachers resulted in 29 responses (i.e. 7.7% response rate). A subset of nine teachers participated in the systematic classroom observation of their RC lessons and a further subset of three teachers participated as case studies in follow up interviews. The results indicated that some evidence-based practices were incorporated in KS2 RC instruction and teachers generally felt confident about their implementation. However, the range of evidence-based practices used was limited and it was not always practices with the strongest evidence base. A positive relationship between teacher self-efficacy and the extent that teachers incorporated evidence-based RC instructional practices was observed, although this relationship appeared complex. The findings from this exploratory study contributed towards the existing gap in research on implementation of evidence based teaching practice for RC instruction in U.K. schools. Implications for professional practice and recommendations for further research are considered.

Since 1990 the Education for All (EFA) movement has acted as a worldwide commitment to the delivery of primary education as a basic human right. Reducing inequalities in terms of school access and academic achievement became a major concern in developing countries where education reforms were inspired by the EFA initiative. This was the case in Kenya and Mauritius, although evidence from the SACMEQ I (1995) and II (2000) survey studies reveals that these two countries presented the highest incidence of private tuition in the southern and eastern Africa region. In turn, such findings raise concern because they appeared to challenge the EFA objectives of quality and equality. The aim of the present thesis is to examine the phenomenon of private tuition in relation to the provision of primary education of good quality to all pupils (EFA initiative) in Kenya and Mauritius. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s theory on the ecology of human development the micro, meso and macro systems are examined as the three levels of the ecological environment of private tuition. In this way, attention was focussed on two critical points: (a) the position of parents in relation to the provision of paid extra lessons and (b) the potential tensions between the different ecological levels regarding the notion of educational equality put forward by EFA (the macro level), the national educational policies implemented for primary school (meso level) and the pupils’ school context (micro level). Survey data from Grade 6 pupils who participated in the SACMEQ III (2007) study reveals that paid extra lessons are delivered inside public (government) schools by pupils’ school teachers outside official hours. In addition, interviews with a sample of sixty parents reveal that in Kenya, private tuition is perceived not only as an important academic support but also as a safe environment where pupils are supervised by responsible adults, whereas in Mauritius private tuition is perceived as crucial for academic advancement. In conclusion, it was found that in both countries private tuition represents an integral component within their mainstream education systems.