Faculty of Education - Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 9 of 9
-
ItemLiteracy and learning in preschool aged children(University of Melbourne, 2010)
-
ItemEvaluation of a parenting intervention aimed at improving preschool children's emotional competence : issues related to the measurement of emotion-focussed parenting skills(University of Melbourne, 2010)Emotional competence is thought to be related to a range of positive outcomes for children including their ability to develop effective social skills and form friendships, achieve well academically and reduce their likelihood of developing externalising or internalising difficulties. The way in which parents respond to their children�s emotions is thought to play a significant role in children�s emotional development. Tuning in to Kids, Emotionally Intelligent Parenting (TIK) is an emotion-focussed parenting intervention designed to teach parents the skills involved in emotion coaching with their children. The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the TIK intervention and explore issues related to measuring changes in emotion-focussed parenting over time. The participants in this study were 95 preschool children (46 boys and 49 girls) and their parents who were allocated as either intervention or wait-list control. Assessments of parents� emotion coaching skills and children�s emotion knowledge were carried out prior to the intervention group beginning the parenting program and six months after they completed the program. Parents� emotion coaching was measured via a storytelling observation task and the Parent Emotional Styles Questionnaire. Children�s emotion knowledge was assessed using the Affective Knowledge Test. Results showed that parents who received the TIK intervention improved significantly more than the control group on both observed and self-reported emotion coaching 6 months after completing the program. No significant relationship was found between these two measures of emotion coaching suggesting the two measures captured different aspects of the construct, being parents� use of emotion coaching language compared to their beliefs and attitudes towards emotion coaching. Intervention group children�s emotion knowledge did not improve significantly more than the control group and there was no significant relationship between parents� emotion coaching and children�s emotion knowledge, suggesting elements of emotion coaching were not captured by the parent measures used. Future research on the definition and measurement of emotion coaching may extend the current findings regarding evaluation of emotion-focussed parenting programs.
-
ItemTelevision viewing and dramatic play behaviour of pre-schoolers( 1995)The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between television and dramatic play by exploring the impact of television viewing upon the play content and play behaviour of pre-school children. This research extends the findings of previous research which assumed that there was a direct causal link between television viewing and the themes, roles and content of children's dramatic play. The results of this research suggest that this view is far too simplistic. They suggest that the outcomes of dramatic play may be modified by a number of factors including: the situational context, the role of adults, and the role of other children. This thesis advances three major findings. Firstly, that others such as parents, peers and teachers have significant influence over pre-schoolers' dramatic play decisions such as in roles, themes and content. Secondly, that the physical environment within which play occurs must be taken into consideration as the situational context can influence and modify the nature of dramatic play. Thirdly, that the child is an active, reasoning participant in dramatic play as the child can choose from the resources available from television and 'replay' only a selection of what was viewed. It is suggested that each child must be considered as a 'selector' exerting control over his/her role in dramatic play.
-
ItemHearing-impaired and normally hearing pre-school children's comprehension and production of shifting reference( 2000)This study investigated shifting reference in young hearing-impaired and normally hearing children. Shifting reference is a critical aspect of communication. Words that shift in reference are unstable in that the referent changes as the circumstances of a conversation change. However, the words do not change their meaning even when there is a change to the event, or object, or person to which the reference refers. A listener can only determine the referent through the use of shared knowledge of the previous event, or conversation or person, or by being able to take the perspective of the speaker. Shifting reference is seen as a difficult aspect of communication to acquire. This study involved three profoundly hearing-impaired children and three normally hearing children aged 5:3 to 5:8 years of age. The purpose of this study was to make an initial investigation into the comprehension and production of shifting reference in young hearing-impaired and normally hearing children in the year prior to primary school. The study also investigated the use of an intervention program that focused on exposing the children to the terms under consideration. The results from the study suggest that the hearing-impaired participants were showing a delay in their comprehension and production of shifting reference when compared with the normally hearing participants. The final assessment of the hearing-impaired participants indicated that the language intervention program had some positive effects, as there was some improvement in most of the selected targeted word categories. The data also suggested that the normally hearing children also benefited from the language intervention program as they improved in both comprehension and production, in the targeted areas where mastery had not been reached.
-
ItemMapping the emergence of literacy-related knowledge in preschool students( 2009)This short-term longitudinal study investigated the emergence of literacy-related knowledge in typically developing preschool children aged between 3- and 6-years of age. The study comprised 68 children (42 males, 26 females; M age = 4.70, SD = 0.70) recruited from two early childhood settings and allocated to one of three age based cohorts (younger n = 17, M age = 3.83, SD = 0.16; middle n = 22, M age = 4.42, SD = 0.26; older n = 29, M age = 5.42, SD = 0.23). Each child completed a comprehensive suite of individual assessment tasks that incorporated oral, phonological, orthographic, alphabet and print knowledge, in addition to some aspects of conventional literacy knowledge (e.g., reading, writing). The tasks were re-administered six months later and complete literacy data were obtained on all measures for 54 children. Children's performance was compared across the three age cohorts and over the time of the study in order to examine the developmental progression of literacy-related knowledge during the preschool period (Study 1). The concurrent associations between measures of emergent literacy-related knowledge and conventional literacy knowledge were also explored for each of the cohorts (Study 2). Nonparametric and parametric analyses revealed group differences on many of the measures, particularly between the older preschool children and the two younger cohorts. Study 1 further demonstrated that literacy-related knowledge emerges early in some knowledge areas and that considerable growth in literacy-related knowledge occurs over a relatively short period of time, particularly between the ages of 4- and 5-years. Study 2 demonstrated that the associations between measures of emergent and conventional literacy knowledge generally increased with age and over time, indicating that emergent literacy-related knowledge and conventional literacy knowledge become more strongly associated during the preschool period. Overall, the results of this study indicate a clear developmental trend towards conventional literacy knowledge that commences in the preschool period. Important implications for early childhood education policy and practice are discussed.
-
ItemEntering and maintaining play interactions : hearing impaired preschoolers in an integrated setting( 1996)The subjects of this study were ten profoundly hearing impaired and ten normally hearing preschoolers. These subjects were matched for age (a mean age of four years seven months) and gender. Each subject was observed during three videotaped free play sessions. A forty minute sample from each of these sessions was analysed. This study used a coding scheme devised to code entry tactics and responses which was adapted from Roberts, Brown and Rickards (in press), and interactive behaviours which was adapted from Blank and Franklin (1980) and Hadley and Rice (1991). The results of this study showed that, despite being placed in an integrated setting, normally hearing and hearing impaired preschoolers preferred to attempt entry with children of 'similar' hearing status to themselves. Moreover, when attempting entry into ongoing play the hearing impaired subjects selected entry tactics from a reduced range, and unlike the normally hearing subjects, did not alter their tactics for subsequent entry attempts. Successful play interactions were analysed for duration, "summoning power" (Blank & Franklin, 1980) and communicative mode. The interactions between hearing impaired and normally hearing preschoolers were shown to be shorter in duration than when playing with a partner of the same hearing status; consisted of fewer interactive turns, and were characterised by less summoning power. These 'mixed dyad' interactions were significantly different from those where both partners were of similiar hearing status. The implications of the study for intervention are discussed together with suggestions for future research.
-
ItemAn observational analysis of classroom attending behaviour in hearing-impaired and normally hearing children( 1989)The aim of this study was to investigate the implications of previous research that hearing-impaired children are less attentive in class than normally hearing children. An additional aim was to examine the variability in attending behaviour within the hearing impaired group, and to explore the possible influence of a range of variables on this behaviour. Twelve hearing-impaired children and twelve normally hearing subjects attending the same kindergarten were used in the study. They were video-recorded over an extended period during the group story-reading activity which was conducted by their teachers as part of their normal programme. Attending behaviour, as indicated by the direction of their gaze, was observed and coded. A momentary time-sampling technique was used to quantify this behaviour. The levels of attending behaviour of the two groups were not found to be significantly different. However, the variability within the hearing-impaired group was found to be significantly greater than that within the normally hearing group. In the hearing-impaired group, four subjects were found to have low levels of attending. The other eight hearing-impaired subjects showed similar levels of attending to those of the normally hearing subjects. Chronological age, educational background and receptive language ability were found to be significantly associated with levels of attending in the hearing-impaired group. In a follow-up study one year later, each of the subjects from the lower attending group who was available for study showed increased levels of attending. Implications for the educational management of hearing-impaired children and future directions for research in this area are examined in the light of these findings.
-
ItemThe effect of maternal dominance on the communication skills of young hearing-impaired children( 1995)The aims of this study were to determine whether mothers of preschool-age hearing-impaired children could adopt a less dominant and more responsive interaction style when instructed, whether hearing-impaired children could be more dominant and less responsive when interacting with a less dominant and more responsive mother, and whether these changes would result in mother-child interaction being similar to previous results for dyads with normally hearing children. Previous studies have found that mothers of hearing-impaired children use a more dominant interaction style than mothers of normally hearing children, and hearing-impaired children use poorer communication skills than normally hearing children of the same age. Furthermore, school-age hearing-impaired children have been shown to use improved communication skills when interacting with a teacher who was using a less dominant interaction style. In the current study, four dyads of normally hearing mothers and their profoundly hearing-impaired children aged 2:3 (years:months) were subjects. Data were collected over four sessions. Mothers were asked to play with their children as they normally would in the first (N) session, and were instructed to adopt a less dominant and more responsive interaction style in the subsequent three sessions (LD1-LD3). Mothers were highly dominant in the N session. They used fewer dominating moves in the LD1-LD3 sessions, but did not use more responsive moves. The children did not use more dominating moves in the LD1-LD3 sessions, but used fewer responsive moves. This resulted in a less dominant maternal interaction style, and a more dominant child interaction style for three of the four dyads only in the LD1-LD3 sessions. The fourth dyad was maternally dominant across all sessions. Also, interactions at the level of dyads were generally similar to previous results for dyads with normally hearing children in the N session. Therefore, instructing mothers to be less dominant and more responsive did not appear to be an appropriate strategy for use with dyads with preschool-age hearing-impaired children.
-
ItemMusic education in day care and pre-school( 2002)When I started out on this research I had two concerns. The first of these related to the general neglect of musical development in early childhood and its broader social and cultural significance. The second related to the special challenge associated with being an itinerant music specialist concerned with teacher education in the performing arts in day care centres and kindergartens. A window of opportunity opened up for my research in 1998 with the Federal Government's adoption of a National Framework for Accreditation of Child Care Centres that specified amongst its criteria the fostering of creative development and aesthetic awareness in early learning centres. My career background as a performing musician and music specialist in schools had provided me with essential knowledge of classroom music teaching and provided some awareness of the need at a practical level to conform to the social logic and community storylines of new settings. I had also been a proprietor of an early education centre in which I had taught music so was aware of the rules, regulations, procedures and protocol that operated in these settings as well as public interest in improved educational services in the day care centres. It was never my intention to measure the level of musical attainment or basic skills of the children. I sought initially to research and represent existing provision and practices of music education in the early childhood centres through a collaborative research agreement with directors and proprietors of the centres and to appraise the potential influence of a peripatetic music specialist in encouraging or empowering the generalist preschool teachers in this area. My initial view was that this was an issue of making staff more comfortable and confident in delivering a form of participatory community music programs in early learning centres. The research was re-defined after a pilot study showed that the poor employment practice and the regulatory regime in the centres meant staff had little or no time for personal-professional involvement in my sessions with the children and a lack of experience or training among staff mitigated against discussion. The redefined collaborative research agreement was a more conventional autoethnography in which I would represent my experiences as a provider over extended periods as a visiting music specialist in each of 5 centres. The research is still a social representation of the dilemma of early childhood music in the sense that arts education was understood at a number of symbolic levels, corporate and educational, to be worthwhile but neglected, but the representations do not quote staff in the centres to the same degree that I had anticipated. To understand this change in research direction is to understand in large measure the problem of music education in the centres. These social representations of music education in each centre are constructed at the intersection of my purposes and social reality in each centre where I was trying to understand the prospects and the conditions for Arts Education. The social representations are primarily theories of lay knowledge in early music education in Australia. The focus of the research has been on a form of thought and its products of which the staff seemed largely unaware. I was seeking to anchor and objectivize music education in these representations. These are globalizing processes. In the representations I sought to anchor my music teaching in each centre by a globalizing process that shows how I made the world of each centre simpler and more manageable. I was showing myself and attempting to show others how one copes with the complexity of music education at this level by grouping musical events and instruments or equipment used together with the children and showing them as similar or equivalent in my accounts. Similarly, I sought to objectify or reconstruct events for the reader that were technical and complex, into something that was less differentiated, similar to something already known and into something conventional. My hope is that these representations can be incorporated into the symbolic social environment and become ontologized in the artistic work of staff and others in early childhood centres.