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This system-level ethnographic study of a strength-based approach to transforming a national invention education program makes visible how program leadership drew on research and their own expertise to shift who and how they served. With data analysis grounded in program reports, documentation, and internal and published research, the program's developmental trajectory is (re)constructed and (re)presented with contextual details provided by program leadership to bring forward how facets of a strength-based approach informed the overtime transformation. Working in conjunction with program leadership to identify common design elements across new program offerings, this study presents this program's principles for designing for instruction and considerations for curricular integration of invention education into K-14 educational institutions. Furthermore, how these principles align with a strength-based approach are discussed.

This longitudinal study examined the interactive effects of individual- and classroom-level teacher-child relationships on developing externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviors in kindergarten children over time. On two occasions separated by about 1 year, data were collected from 473 kindergarten children (52% boys, M[subscript age] = 4.36 years) and their class teachers and mothers in Hong Kong, China. Class teachers reported the closeness and conflict in their relationships with each participating child of their class at Time 1, and mothers reported the child's externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviors at Times 1 and 2. Results indicated that controlling for child age, gender, grade, maternal education, and prior levels of child adjustment, individual-level teacher-child closeness was negatively associated with internalizing behaviors, and individual-level teacher-child conflict was positively associated with child externalizing behaviors over time. Classroom-level teacher-child closeness and conflict emerged as moderators. The longitudinal association between individual-level teacher-child closeness and externalizing behaviors was negative in low-closeness classrooms but not in high-closeness classrooms. However, the longitudinal association between individual-level teacher-child conflict and child prosocial behaviors was negative in low-conflict classrooms but not in high-conflict classrooms. Despite the statistical significance of the cross-level interaction effects, they were of small effect sizes and explained only very small amounts of variance. Theoretically, our findings demonstrated the interplay of the individual- and classroom-level teacher-child relationships in shaping children's psychosocial adjustment over time. Practically, our findings highlighted the importance of enhancing teachers' awareness of the affective quality of their relationships with children at both classroom and individual levels, which could potentially impede or promote child development.

The influence of the epistemological beliefs of parents on the development of comprehensive scientific reasoning abilities was investigated in a five-wave longitudinal study from kindergarten to elementary school. The 161 German 5-10-year-olds (89 girls, 72 boys) were assessed yearly on their scientific reasoning abilities using comprehensive measures for experimentation and data-interpretation skills, as well as understanding of the nature of science. The children were also tested on their language abilities and intelligence. Their parents completed a sociodemographics questionnaire and answered ten questions about their epistemological beliefs regarding (1) the interpretive nature of science, (2) the tentative nature of knowledge, and (3) the role of scientific framework theories. The personal epistemology of the parents significantly predicted the scientific reasoning development of their children regardless of the parents' education level and the children's general cognitive abilities. However, the effect of the epistemology of parents on their children's scientific reasoning was limited to the intercepts, suggesting that the epistemic understanding of parents affects how scientific reasoning develops in their children, but not the development speed. Although parental epistemology exerts substantial effects on scientific reasoning of their children, it did not affect their reading ability, suggesting an involvement of science-specific mechanisms rather than generalized family-based influences. These findings highlight the importance of family as a variable in the development of scientific reasoning, which is an area lacking in research, and it suggests that early interventions targeted at the epistemic understanding of caregivers can provide useful ways for promoting the reasoning of children.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of learning trajectories-based coding (LTs) and LTs-based program on preschoolers' length, area, volume, and angle measurement skills. A quasi-experimental research design was utilized with a quantitative approach. The study's participants were 47 children between the ages of 55-71 months who attended a state kindergarten. The children were randomly assigned to three groups: experimental 1 (n = 15), experimental 2 (n = 17), and control (n = 15). The current preschool education curriculum was implemented in the control group, LTs-based coding activities were implemented in experimental 1, and LTs-based activities were implemented in experimental 2. Data regarding the children's measurement skills were collected using the Early Measurement Assessment Tool (EMAT) before the implementation of programs, immediately after, and four weeks after the final session. The EMAT scores were analyzed using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM), and the results indicated that both programs had a significant and permanent effect on preschoolers' measurement skills when compared to the control group. However, there was no significant difference between the experimental groups. The results were consistent across length, area, volume, and angle and turn subtests. The study contributes to the existing literature on the effectiveness of the LTs approach in improving preschoolers' mathematics skills and highlights the potential benefits of incorporating the LTs approach and coding into preschool education.

This study aims to examine the effect of augmented reality-assisted programming education supported by participatory design on the basic and computational thinking skills of preschoolers. In the study, a pretest-posttest single-group semi-experimental design, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The study group of the research consists of 61 students studying in kindergarten in the 2021-2022 academic year. 48% of the students are boys and 52% are girls. The implementation process took nine weeks. In the first part of the research, the CodeLimbel application was developed by conducting a five-week participatory design study with two groups. In the second part of the study, the programming training prepared by the researcher was applied to all groups for four weeks. The "Basic Skills Scale", "TechCheck" scale, and "Student Interview Questions" developed by the researcher were used as data collection tools. It was found that augmented reality-supported programming education had a statistically significant effect on students' computational thinking and basic skills. It was observed that all of the students who participated or did not participate in the participatory design study were interested and excited about programming education with augmented reality applications.

In this article, I examine how a sample of principals in Texas and West Virginia made sense of the learning experiences of kindergarteners and how such sensemaking appeared to affect them as instructional leaders. Examining these issues creates the opportunity to consider the types of support school leaders might need to address the changing kindergarten as well as how they might work with teachers, children, and their families so that all students are on a trajectory for school success. I employed case study methodology using sensemaking theory to examine: (a) how twelve principals made sense of the learning experiences kindergarten students are and should be having as they begin elementary school, and (b) how such sensemaking appears to affect them as instructional leaders. These principals appeared to make sense of kindergarteners' learning experiences in a complex manner that was shaped by their own beliefs about the purpose of kindergarten as well as the neoliberal contexts in which they worked. Yet, such sensemaking did not appear to translate into their decision-making as instructional leaders, even though these principals worked in different state-level policy contexts and had varying resources available to them within their schools. Instead, policymakers' neoliberal demands for academic achievement in the later grades seemed to dictate their point of emphasis in their decision-making process. To address these issues, I provide several suggestions to support principals in developing their understanding of early education so that they can instructionally lead these programs in a manner that supports children's success in school.

Theoretical models hold that written products (e.g., quality of written composition) are the outcome of the writing process (e.g., translation, transcription, revision) and skills and knowledge on which the writing process draws (e.g., language, transcription, cognitive skills). In the present study, we examined the relations among writing quality; the writing production process measured by writing fluency; and language, cognitive, and transcription skills, using longitudinal data from English-speaking beginning writers who were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (N = 261). Children's working memory, attentional control, spelling, handwriting fluency, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and writing quality were measured in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Writing fluency was measured in Grade 2 in two ways, using a process-based measure, writing burst length (chunks of text produced between pauses during writing), and a product-based measure, the number of words produced per total writing time. Results from structural equation modeling showed that Grade 2 writing fluency was moderately related to Grade 2 writing quality (0.40) and completely mediated the relations of Grade 1 spelling and handwriting fluency skills to Grade 2 writing quality. In contrast, Grade 1 vocabulary was directly related to Grade 2 writing quality over and above Grade 2 writing fluency. Kindergarten working memory was indirectly related to Grade 2 writing fluency via Grade 1 spelling skill. These findings indicate that the writing production process measured by writing fluency mediates the relations of transcription skills to writing quality, and executive function is indirectly related to writing fluency via transcription skills for beginning writers.

This study investigated the relationship between task-based teacher training and novice English language teachers' cognitions and implementations of tasks in Honduran bilingual schools. After participating in a four-week training program on task-based language teaching, teachers with little or no prior teaching experience designed task-based lessons and were video-recorded implementing those lessons with English language learners ages 5 to 12. Following the classroom observation, teachers participated in a stimulated recall interview. A rubric aligned with 10 key principles of task-based language teaching (TBLT) as outlined by Long (2015) was used to rate teachers' performance and code stimulated recalls. Ratings of video observations showed varied success in TBLT implementation after training, with some teachers' lessons clearly aligned with key TBLT principles, and others relying on focus on forms strategies. Analysed data also uncovered a link between previous training and teaching experiences and the success of teachers' implementations. Stimulated recalls showed that teachers focused primarily on maintaining a cooperative learning environment, and less on reactive aspects of TBLT such as providing corrective feedback. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for teachers and teacher training programs seeking to implement TBLT as an approach to language teaching.

In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau (EDB) is responsible for the quality assurance of kindergarten education services. EDB inspectors regularly conduct school visits to monitor kindergartens' performance and publish a Quality Review (QR) report for each kindergarten. Given the limited research on pedagogical practices pertaining to physical activities in Hong Kong kindergartens, the current study analyzes the content concerning this learning area in the QR reports. We analyzed 164 QR reports (published between 2017 and 2020) according to four analytic dimensions: (1) Overall presence of content pertaining to physical activities; (2) References to specific forms of physical activities; (3) Positive feedback; and (4) Negative feedback and recommendations. The presence of physical activities in the QR reports was found to be low (5% on average). EDB inspectors alluded to physical activities generically, not specifying the motor skill(s) at hand. Both positive and negative feedback focused primarily on matters pertaining to the time of exposure to physical activities and teachers' pedagogical quality. Our evidence suggests the existence of potential gaps between Hong Kong's kindergarten policies and actual physical activity practices. Further professional development seems necessary to strengthen both teachers' pedagogies and inspectors' understandings of physical activities.

Background: Dialogic reading (DR) is an effective shared reading technique based on the prompts-evaluate-expand-repeat (PEER) sequence, which fosters children's language development. This study examines the effects of its elements by comparing shared reading with prompts with minimal feedback (PMF) and PEER. Methods: This study included 364 typically developing Chinese kindergarteners and used a randomised control trial design. The children and their parents were divided into three groups, namely, the PMF, PEER and control groups. The children were pre- and post-tested on their language skills and reading interest measures before and after the intervention. Results: Results showed that after a 12-week intervention, the children in the PMF group outperformed those in the control group in terms of receptive vocabulary, character reading and listening comprehension. Meanwhile, the children in the PEER group outperformed those in the PMF and control groups not only in terms of the above measures but also in their expressive vocabulary and reading interest. Conclusions: These results highlight the contribution of parents' questions and the additional benefits of their systematically corrective feedback on kindergarten children's language and reading interest development. This study supports the literature on cognitive engagement theory related to young children's individual language and reading interest development through interactive parent-child DR activities.

The relation between reading and mathematics achievement is an active area of research, and evidence in the extant literature suggests they are closely related. However, there is a lack of understanding about how their relation develops over time. Indeed, traditional longitudinal analyses have focused on investigating each domain independently, which misses the opportunity to examine important relations between the two simultaneously as they change over time. Thus, in this study we investigate the joint development of reading and mathematics achievement and the association between their longitudinal trajectories modeled as piecewise linear phenomena using a Bayesian inference approach. We used a random sample (n = 1000) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten class, which followed a cohort of children from kindergarten through middle school, where 49% were male and 76% were in public schools. The findings showed that both educational domains were positively associated along their piecewise linear trajectories, however, the magnitude of association decreased over time. Moreover, a focus on distinct developmental phases highlighted the reciprocal relation between reading and mathematics.

In this article, we offer theory-grounded narratives of a 4-year participatory design process of a Learning Analytics tool with K-12 educators. We describe how we "design-in-partnership" by leveraging educators' routines, values and cultural representations into the designs of digital dashboards. We make our long-term reasoning visible by reflecting upon how design decisions were made, discussing key tensions and analysing to what extent the developed tools were taken up in practice. Through thick design narratives, we reflect upon how cultural forms--recognizable cultural constructs that might cue and facilitate specific activities--were identified among educators and informed the design of a dashboard. We then examined the extent to which the designed tool supported coaches and teachers to engage in Generative Uncertainty, an interpretive stance in which educators manifest productive inquiries towards data. Our analysis highlights that attuning to cultural forms is a valuable first step but not enough towards designing LA tools for systems in ways that fit institutionalized practices, challenge instrumental uses and spur productive inquiry. We conclude by offering two key criteria for making culturally-grounded design decisions in the context of long-term partnerships.

Celebrated as the country with the best education system globally, Finland has also gained a reputation as one of the most racist countries in Europe for black people, especially people from Sub-Saharan Africa. The best education system in the world is built on the sweat and blood of racialised people whose experiences and roles they play as teachers and students, or their systemic absence, is often ignored. Using critical discourse analysis, this paper argues that Black male kindergarten teachers in Finland have a lot to offer outside their racialised perceived hegemonic conceptualisations and practices. This paper demonstrates how this group of teachers experiences racism because of their skin colour and gender. Despite these experiences of racism, their essential role in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) cannot be underestimated.

This study explored the prevalence of the null curriculum in the Ghanaian basic school education system. It also sought to identify the main reasons behind teachers' omission of specific topics or experiences from the basic school curriculum. Three hundred seventy-five basic school teachers from kindergarten, primary, and junior high schools participated in the study. A 32-item self-designed questionnaire was used to collect data for the analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The study participants identified lack of resources, the problematic nature of some topics, insufficient time, and inadequate knowledge and skills as factors contributing to the prevalence of null curriculum in Ghanaian schools. The findings show that a null curriculum is prevalent in the Ghanaian basic education system. The study found no statistically significant difference between teacher characteristics (i.e., teacher status and grade level) and the reasons behind omitting some topics or experiences. Implications of the study findings for educational theory and practice are discussed.

Many online learning experiences integrate some form of dialogic interaction among instructors and learners. However, the degree to which these individuals come to a mutual understanding of their task and topic, a phenomenon called intersubjectivity, often remains a question. This systematic review of online learning research examines 48 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2004 and 2021, looking at the overall trajectory of the research conversation across time, disciplines, modality and learning activities; major trends in methods, and focus; and interconnectedness. Findings suggest a dispersed body of literature, with some small groups of interconnected work but little cohesion or traction as a research field. This review has implications for future researchers in this area, who are encouraged to synthesize across this body of research and work together to establish and pursue an agenda for the field that will not only further inquiry in this area but also lead to practical knowledge about learning activity design and facilitation that is useful to online instructors.

Concerns about a strong positive correlation between leadership and student success (Wood et al., 2013) coupled with community input around hiring from outside an organization, as opposed to hiring from within, contributes to the complexity of filling superintendent vacancies The limited research available on this issue is amplified due to the concern around the shortage of highly qualified superintendent candidates available to fill those top roles (Grissom & Andersen, 2012; Grissom & Mitani, 2016; Kamrath & Brunner, 2014). The role of district superintendent can be cumbersome, yet, it can be a role worth pursuing. The information gathered for this ethnographic study was derived from the responses from various stakeholders' opinions, feelings, and experiences as they related to the superintendent position and 'grow your own' hiring practices in rural districts. This study revealed there are both advantages and disadvantages to implementing the GYO approach. Limiting the pool of qualified applicants, and contributing to gender-bias in candidate selection were challenges shared by the participants while the building of a culture of leadership and shortening the learning curve were identified as advantages of a GYO hiring approach.

With the study reported on here we aimed to synthesise recent quantitative research to specify the effect of inclusive practices on attitudes via meta-analysis. Since attitudes have an integral role in the performance of inclusion programmes, within the scope of the study, the cumulative findings of experimental studies conducted on attitudes towards inclusive practices were reinterpreted. To this end, studies with a pretest-posttest control group carried out in 2000 and 2021 were scanned from databases according to the inclusion criteria. After the search process, 23 studies that met the inclusion criteria were selected from 54 studies. The overall sample size of the studies included 2,016 participants. The mean effect size calculations, heterogeneity test, moderator analyses and publication bias analyses were conducted through a comprehensive meta-analysis programme (CMA 3.0). The findings that were discussed in accordance with the random effects model (REM) suggest that inclusive practices have a positive effect on attitudes and this effect is at a large level (g = 1.328) with respect to Cohen's classification. This result indicates that inclusive practices have been strongly influenced by positive attitudes to yield favourable results. According to the moderator analyses, the highest effect sizes were found in the teachers' group (g = 1,880) according to group level and in primary education (g = 1,374) according to school grades. The attitudes towards inclusion have been strongly influenced by teachers' beliefs about the power of their teaching. More empirical studies on inclusive practices are recommended.

This study examined a professional development (PD) intervention that provided kindergarten-through third-grade teachers with drama-based pedagogy to improve student reading achievement. The PD consisted of collaboration between teaching artists and teachers to integrate drama into English language arts instruction for a school year. Twenty-six classroom teachers and their 815 kindergarten, first-,second-, and third-grade students participated in this quasi-experimental study. Student reading achievement was measured with the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) in the fall, winter, and spring. With the exception of first-grade students, results indicated statistically significant student growth in favor of the experimental group relative to a business-as-usual comparison group. Implications in terms of embodied theories of cognition and classroom practice are discussed.

The early development of spatial reasoning skills has been linked to future success in mathematics (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009), but research to date has mainly focused on the development of these skills within classroom settings rather than at home. The home environment is often the first place students are exposed to, and develop, early mathematics skills, including spatial reasoning (Blevins-Knabe, 2016; Hart, Ganley, & Purpura, 2016). The purpose of the current study is to develop a survey instrument to better understand Kindergarten through Grade 2 students' opportunities to learn spatial reasoning skills at home. Using an argument-based approach to validation (Kane, 2013), we collected multiple sources of validity evidence, including expert review of item wording and content and pilot data from 201 parent respondents. This manuscript outlines the interpretation/use argument that guides our validation study and presents evidence collected to evaluate the scoring inferences for using the survey to measure students' opportunities to learn spatial reasoning skills at home.

The aim of this study is to examine the drawings of 5-6-year-old children attending preschool educational institutions regarding their perceptions of recycling. For this purpose, the pictures drawn by children who were administered recycling-themed drama activity and those who were not were examined. The study was designed in an experimental design with a control group. The content analysis method, one of the qualitative data collection methods, was used in the study. The data were collected by using the draw-narrate technique through the pictures drawn by the children. A total of 24 children aged 5-6 years, who were attending kindergartens in the 2022-2023 academic year, determined by convenience sampling method, participated in the study. After the drama activity on recycling was administered to 10 children in the first group, they were asked to draw pictures about recycling in the evaluation phase. The 13 children in the second group were asked what they thought of when they thought of recycling and were asked to draw pictures. The expressions of children describing the pictures they drew were noted. By using the content analysis method in the analysis of the data, children's perceptions of recycling were tried to be revealed. As a result of the research, the rate of recycling figures in the pictures of children who drew pictures related to recycling after the drama activity on recycling was found to be significantly high (90%) compared to the pictures containing figures related to recycling in the pictures drawn by children who did not have a drama activity on recycling (46,1%).

The coordinate system is a fundamental tool for many daily activities, yet it is usually taught to children in middle school. Research suggests that children should be exposed to the coordinate system at a younger age, using methods appropriate to their developmental level. This paper presents a set of instructional activities designed to teach kindergarten children the basic concepts and principles of the coordinate system. The activities were implemented in two early childhood institutions in Istanbul, Türkiye. Arranged in a developmental progression from simple to complex and from concrete to abstract, they align with the children's developmental levels. We discussed what we learned from our implementations of the activities. Detailed suggestions are presented for teachers introducing young children to the coordinate system.

Young children's instinctive curiosity is essential in early childhood science education. Efficacious science education is associated with the characteristics of a qualified science program and an effective learning environment. The out-of-school learning environments make it easier to achieve the aims of science education in early childhood with their opportunities and advantages. This single case study aimed to reveal the views of the parents of children aged 60-72 months who participated in an early childhood science program that included science activities in out-of-school learning environments, in the classroom, and at home. The program, which included parent involvement activities in the classroom, out-of-school learning environments and at home, was implemented for seven weeks. After completing all activities of the program, the data obtained from the interviews with the parents were analyzed. The findings showed that parents were interested in science and supported their children regarding science subjects, spent time at home on science activities, and visited out-of-school learning environments with their children. It was determined that the out-of-school learning activities of the program contributed a lot to the child, and the studies of parent involvement at home contributed variously for both the child and the parents. The program was effective as a whole and parents requested its implementation throughout the school year. Based on these findings, in this research, we discussed the importance of frequently including science activities in out-of-school learning environments and classroom activities in early childhood and the parents' involvement in the science education process as valuable stakeholders. [This research was presented as an oral presentation at the X. International Congress of Educational Research in Türkiye (Nevsehir) on 27-30 April 2018.]

Supporting socio-economically disadvantaged students to improve their academic resilience is vital in promoting social mobility and halting intergenerational transmission of poverty. Based on the baseline data 2013-2014 from the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) database, this paper examined the impact of preschool education experience on academic resilience of disadvantaged students using coarsened exact matching (CEM) and hierarchical logistic regression. Research findings show that disadvantaged children have less access to preschool education than their advantaged peers, with a kindergarten attendance rate lower than 70%; that preschool education can significantly improve children's cognitive ability and effectively predict academic resilience of disadvantaged students; and that preschool education is a better predictor of resilience of rural disadvantaged students than that of their urban counterparts. The government should reinforce subsidies for early childhood education that can serve as compensation for disadvantaged kids; and should further universalize preschool education to secure the opportunity of high-quality pre-primary school education for disadvantaged children.