teacher expectations and the learning experiences of four‐year‐olds in preschool and primary...

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Teacher expectations and the learning experiences offour‐year‐olds in preschool and primary school settingsMargaret Kernan a & Nóirín Hayes ba Research Assistant at The Dublin Institute of Technologyb Head of the School of Social Sciences and Director of the Early Childhood Research Centre ,The Dublin Institute of TechnologyPublished online: 18 Jul 2008.

To cite this article: Margaret Kernan & Nóirín Hayes (1998) Teacher expectations and the learning experiencesof four‐year‐olds in preschool and primary school settings, Irish Educational Studies, 17:1, 222-240, DOI:10.1080/0332331980170120

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222 Annual Conference, 1997

TEACHER EXPECTATIONS AND THE LEARNINGEXPERIENCES OF FOUR-YEAR-OLDS IN PRESCHOOL

AND PRIMARY SCHOOL SETTINGS

Margaret Kernan and Nóirín Hayes

Introduction

The educational values and expectations of an educator of youngchildren undoubtedly influence her1 behaviour in the classroom interms of the kinds of activities she provides for the children and howopportunities for play, space and time are organised. In this paper wewill explore the relationship between teachers' beliefs andexpectations and the experiences of the children in their care. Wewill do this by comparing data on teachers' beliefs concerning themost and least important aspects of early years provision with datafrom detailed observations of a sample of 396 four-year-old childrenin Irish preschool and primary school settings. The findings will bediscussed in the context of the current situation regarding earlychildhood educational provision in Ireland.

It could be argued that much of the pedagogy of early childhoodeducation is underpinned by certain ideologies, or systems of beliefswhich have evolved over time. The agreements or commonalties ofthe early pioneers of the early childhood tradition such as FriedrichFroebel and Maria Montessori have been brought together by Bruce(1987) in ten principles of early childhood education - principleswhich are as influential today as they were a hundred years ago:

1. Childhood is seen as valid in itself, as part of life and notsimply as preparation for adulthood. Thus education is seensimilarly as something of the present and not just preparationand training for later.

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Annual Conference, 1997 223

2. The whole child is considered important.

3. Learning is not compartmentalised, everything links.

4. Intrinsic motivation, resulting in child-initiated, self-directedactivity is emphasised.

5. Self-discipline is emphasised.

6. There are specially receptive periods of learning at differentstages of development.

7. What children can do (rather than what they cannot do) is thestarting point in a child's education.

8. There is an inner structure in the child which includesimagination and which emerges especially under favourableconditions.

9. The people (both adults and children) with whom the childinteracts are of central importance.

10. The child's education is seen as an interaction between the childand the environment - including other people and knowledgeitself (Bruce, 1987, p.181).

A recurring theme in recent research in Early ChildhoodEducation has been the concept of play as a process in learning. Whilethere has been much written about the importance of the facilitation ofplay activities in early education and the relevant value and role of freeplay versus structured play (see Bennett & Kell 1989; Dowling 1988;Sylva, Roy & Painter 1980), it is the authors' belief that structuredplay, while carefully planned by the adult, should not be entirely adultled or directed. A balance is necessary between child choice and adultdirection. Play is structured in the sense that it is facilitated by theprovision of appropriate materials, space and time but the child shouldnot be aware of the structure. Play also acts as an integratingmechanism for an early years curriculum. In this regard the termpurposeful play, rather than structured play is preferred.

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224 Annual Conference. 1997

The IEA Pre-primary Project

The findings reported on in this paper represent a sample of resultsfrom an international comparative study of early childhood care andeducation the IEA (International Association for the Evaluation ofEducational Achievement) Pre-primary Project. The impetus fortaking part in such a project was to broaden the research base onearly childhood education in Ireland. To date relatively little researchhas been carried out on this topic despite great changes in the leveland type of early educational provision here over the last decade.

The IEA Pre-primary Project, which involves fifteen countriesincluding Ireland, was developed in response to a need for information-sharing about early childhood services in a world where demographic,social and economic changes have resulted in an increased demand forearly childhood services. At a time when a growing body ofinternational research is demonstrating the long-term benefits of high-quality early childhood programmes, it was felt that such information-sharing would bring a broader perspective to each nation's programmeplanning and policy development

The IEA Pre-primary Project is being conducted in three phases:

Phase 1 (1986-1992) identified the different types ofcare/education settings parents around the world choose fortheir preschool aged (four-year-old) children. Ireland did notparticipate in Phase 1 as Phase 2 was already in progress whenIreland became involved.

• Phase 2 (1989-1995) used extensive observational andinterview data to investigate the 'quality of life' of four-year-olds in different settings. It seeks to understand how theeducational values and expectations of teachers/caregiversaffect the way they organise the environment for the child andhow specific structural features and/or interactional processes ofsettings, as well as family background factors, affect children'sdevelopmental status at age four.

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Phase 3 (1993-1997) will complete the IEA Pre-primary Project.The purpose of the final phase is to study the relationshipbetween early childhood experiences at age four and children'scognitive, language and socio-emotional development at ageseven. By age seven the children in all participating countrieswill have had at least one year of formal schooling.

The analytical framework of the IEA Pre-primary Project isbased on the ecological model of development set forth by(Bronfenbrenner 1979). The framework of the project draws onecological and cross-cultural perspectives to explore the interplay offive major groups of variables; family characteristics, settingcharacteristics, teacher/caregiver behaviours, child behaviours andchild developmental status. Not only is this list of variablescomprehensive, but it forms the basis for a "process model ofresearch" (Crahay, 1990) that seeks to understand not just whether,but more importantly how early experience influences children'sshort- and long-term development (Ojala & Hayes, forthcoming).

Whilst this is an international study, each participating countrywas free to include elements of particular national interest. It was ourintention to include the area of educational disadvantage as anelement in our study. This reflects in part the fact that funding for theIrish study had been secured from The Combat Poverty Agency.Another reason for examining educational disadvantage was the factthat most state supported early educational developments have beentargeted at the educationally disadvantaged. Thus the Irish study wasdesigned to look at four types of settings: "non-designateddisadvantaged" (NDD) preschools, "designated disadvantaged" CDD)preschools, "non-designated disadvantaged" (NDD) schools and"designated disadvantaged" (DD) schools.

The Sample

Three hundred and ninety-six 4-year-old children, 209 boys and 187girls, participated in the study. In line with the populationdistribution, over one third of the sample came from Dublin.Twenty-two other counties also participated. Setting types wereselected on the basis that twenty per cent or more of four-year-olds inIreland attended such settings. From the limited data available, two

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main settings emerged - first, the preschool services and second, thejunior infant classes in primary school. Settings were randomlyselected using data from Department of Education, Department ofHealth, Association of Montessori Ireland (AMI), An ComhchoisteRéamhscolafochta Teo, the Irish Preschool Playgroups Association(IPPA) and St. Nicholas Montessori Society. Table 1 illustrates theachieved sample. It was planned to select randomly four children persetting and to have approximately equal numbers of settings andchildren per cell; however, when fewer than four 4-year-olds werepresent in any one setting, it was necessary to find additional settingsuntil the required number in each cell was attained. Data collectiontook place between March 1994 and June 1995.

TABLE 1 — Number of children and settings in the sample

NDD School

DD School

NDD Preschool

DD Preschool

TOTALS

Number ofSettings

23

27

25

29

109

Number ofChildren

101

102

90

103

396

Measurement Instruments

The set of measures used for data collection included threequestionnaires/surveys, three observation systems and five childdevelopmental status measures. These instruments were designed bythe International Co-ordinating Committee (ICC) of the IEA Pre-primary Project in consultation with the National Research Committeesand were piloted prior to use in the project. The International Co-ordinating Committee was comprised of a National Research Co-ordinator from each participating country. Two instruments inparticular are of interest in this paper the Expectations Questionnaireand the Observation Systems.

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Expectations Questionnaire

Teachers2 from 104 settings provided Expectations information.The Expectations Questionnaire explored teachers' and parents' beliefsabout which areas of development are important for four-year-oldchildren. In this paper we report on findings relating to teachers only.

The interview divided young children's development into eightareas and was used along with a set of cards describing the eightareas of development (see Appendix). The eight areas were pre-academic, motor/physical skills, self-expression skills, languageskills, social skills with peers, social skills with adults, self-sufficiency skills, self-assessment skills.

Respondents were asked:

1. what were the three most important skills they thought childrenshould learn between the ages of three and five and to rank themin order of importance. They were then asked to choose thethree least important categories and to rank them in order ofimportance. Using the results from these two steps, they wereasked to rank the categories from first to eighth, most importantto least important.

2. to choose two subskills which they thought were the mostimportant for children to leam between the ages of three andfive from the three original categories of skills (above) they hadranked as most important.

3. to choose the three categories of skills which they consideredmost important as part of their responsibility for teaching thechildren and to rank them in order of importance.

Observations

The second component of the paper seeks to explore the degreeto which Irish teachers' beliefs and expectations are reflected in theirpractice in the classroom. One of the most exciting elements of theIEA Pre-primary Project was its use of observational data. Sylva andher colleagues in the Oxford Preschool Project developed observation

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in a natural setting to a high level. For their studies they identified aTarget Child (TC) and observed this child in particular. According toSylva et al 1980 the target child technique has its roots in science, itis statistical and formal, but focuses on the child in his routineenvironment, playing with everyday materials and talking with dailycompanions. This technique was also developed for use in the E APre-primary Project. The project's observational data provided uswith reliable information about what exactly a teacher does in theclassroom and what the children's experiences are. It could beargued that this data is the key component in understanding thequality of learning opportunities offered to the children.

Three separate observation systems were developed to gatherinformation on the following:

• management of time (how the adult organised the children'stime in the setting);

• child activities (activities and interactions of each target child ina given setting);

• adult behaviour (general behaviours of the teacher/caregiver, thespecific behaviours directed towards each target child, and thenature of the adult's general involvement with the children).3

Results

Teacher Expectations

Overall, social skills with peers was chosen most frequently byteachers/caregivers as the most important skill for children to learnwith twenty-five per cent of all teachers giving it their top nomination.Looking at this variable by setting, more respondents in the designateddisadvantaged and non-designated disadvantaged preschools and in thenon-designated disadvantaged schools chose social skills with peersthan any other category. Only teachers of children in the designateddisadvantaged school category differed - thirty-two per cent of themchose language skills as most important, with the next highestpercentage of respondents choosing social skills with peers (twenty-one per cent).

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FIGURE 1 -Teachers' Expectations

% teachers who chose each of the eight skillscategories as most important for children to learn

self-assessment

self-sufficiency

g social skills with"C adultsg) social skills witha peers

^ language skills

S self-expression

motor/physical

preacademic skills

10 15 20

% teachers

Further analysis allowed us to calculate the percentage ofteachers in each of the four settings who ranked each of the eightareas of development within the top three most important skills. Theresults, shown in Table 2, illustrate a similar pattern of expectationswith social skills with peers ranked within the top three mostimportant skills by seventy-six per cent of teachers.

Thus overall we found that teachers disagreed with a strongemphasis on pre-academics in the early years of a child's education.This finding is in line with both international and Irish research(Higgins Hains, Fowler, Schwartz, Kottwitz & Rosenkoetter, 1989;Rusher, Me Grevin & Lambiotte, 1992; Bennett & Kell, 1989; INTO,1995).

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TABLE 2 - Percentage of teachers who ranked each of the eightareas of development within the top three

Area ofDevelopment

Pre-academic

Motor Physical

Self-Expression

Language

Social Skills withPeers

Social Skills withAdults

Self-Sufficiency

Self Assessment

Overall

34%(N=97)

16%(N=98)

38%(N=93)

61%(N=99)

76%(N=100)

21%(N=92)

41%(N=97)

32%(N=99)

DD Pre-School

23%(N=22)

13%(N=24)

32%(N=22)

68%(N=25)

76%(N=25)

33%(N=21)

43%(N=23)

54%(N=24)

DDSchool

60%(N=25)

15%(N=26)

40%(N=25)

65%(N=23)

72%(N=25)

8%(N=24)

38%(N=24)

15%(N=26)

NDDPre-School

25%(N=24)

17%(N=23)

33%(N=24)

52%(N=25)

84%(N=25)

13%(N=23)

48%(N=25)

32%(N=25)

NDDSchool

27%(N=26)

20%(N=25)

45%(N=22)

58%(N=26)

72%(N=25)

29%(N=24)

36%(N=25)

29%(N=24)

Teachers were also asked what they considered theirresponsibility to teach (see Figure 2). While more of the group as awhole chose social skills with peers (twenty-four per cent) than anyother category, there were differences between preschool and schoolteachers. Social skills with peers was the category chosen mostfrequently by the teachers at both designated disadvantaged and non-designated disadvantaged preschool settings (thirty-five per centnominated it most important), while pre-academic skills was the

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category chosen most frequently by the teachers at designateddisadvantaged and non-designated disadvantaged school settings(thirty-six per cent nominated it most important).

FIGURE 2 - Teachers' Responsibilities

1acduen

skill

% teachecs who chose each of the eight skillscategories ÄS most important as part of their

sell-assessment

self-sufficiencysocial skills with

adultssocial skills with

peerslanguage skills

self-expression

motor/physicalpreacademic

skills

responsibility to teach

j —Lj—i= ^ ¡ —I ^^^^^^0 5 10 15 20

% teachers

1I

25 30

This finding would seem to indicate a mismatch between thebeliefs/philosophy of teachers in schools and their perceivedresponsibilities. When asked what they considered was the mostimportant skill for young children to learn between the ages of threeand five, more teachers in non-designated schools selected socialskills with peers than any other category - and yet when asked whatthey considered their responsibility to teach, pre-academic skills wasthe category chosen most frequently by the teachers in bothdesignated disadvantaged and non-designated disadvantaged schools.By contrast the situation in preschools revealed an agreementbetween teachers' expectations and their perceived responsibilities.Overall preschool teachers selected social skills with peers more thanany other skill, both as the most important skill for children to learnand also as their most important responsibility to teach.

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Management of Time Observations

In order to study the degree to which teachers' expectations arereflected in practice the observation systems were developed. TheManagement of Time (MOT) Observation system provided acomplete picture of how the adult organised the children's timeduring a morning. Each activity proposed by the adult was noted, aswell as the type of child involvement proposed (e.g. was the childlistening or watching, participating or doing) and the time of eachchange of activity. In addition, the group structure was noted foreach activity. Amongst the findings are the following:

• Teachers/caregivers in designated disadvantaged and non-designated disadvantaged schools proposed that on average moretime (thirty per cent and forty per cent respectively) be spent inpre-academic activities than in any other category of activity (seeFigure 3). This finding is not surprising given that more teacherscoasidered pre-academic skills their responsibility to teach thanany other skill. The second highest category of activity proposedby teachers in schools was personal/social activities with teachersin designated disadvantaged schools proposing this activitytwenty per cent of the total time; in non-designated disadvantageschools this figure was seventeen per cent

• Teachers in designated disadvantaged and non-designateddisadvantaged preschools proposed more time (twenty-three percent and thirty-six per cent respectively on average) be spent inmixed activities than in any other category of activity (seeFigure 4). Mixed activities as defined by the ICC refer to howthe adult organises or proposes several simultaneous activitiesfrom which the children can choose or through which they areasked to progress (rotate from one activity to the next).

We also noted that a low percentage of time in school settings,and to a lesser extent in preschools, were proposed to be spent in free,expressive and physical activities. Teachers in primary schoolspropose that children have free choice in their activity for only sevenper cent of the total time. In preschools teachers propose free choiceactivities for eighteen per cent of the total time.

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FIGURE 3 - Management of time (schools)

Mean % of time planned In major categories ofactivities

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 SO 90 100

FIGURE 4 - Management of time (preschools)

Mean % of time planned In major categories ofactivities

I?cd Personal/Social

Preacadamlc

Expressive

Physical

H DD Preschool

• NDD Preschool

1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 SO 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 0 1 0 0

Mean % time

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For each line of observation the type of group structure proposedfor that activity was noted, for example, was the target child involvedin an activity as part of the whole group of children or in a sub-groupof children. Our findings indicated that children attending a primaryschool setting are more likely to be in whole groups than childrenattending preschool settings. Teachers in primary schools could wellargue that whole-group structure is the best possible classroommanagement strategy given the average teacher/child ratios of 1:28 and1:29 which we found in designated disadvantaged and non-designateddisadvantaged schools respectively. More surprising, however, are thefindings that the preschool teachers proposed whole-group structuresgiven that in most of these settings there was a second adult present. Itis worth noting, however, that the average whole-group size indesignated disadvantaged preschools was twenty-one children and innon-designated disadvantaged preschools, eighteen children.

Child Activities Observations

Forty minutes was spent observing Child Activities for each targetchild during the two days, yielding a total of eighty observationepisodes per child. The activities of the target child were the focus ofthe observation and were recorded at thirty-second intervals. Inaddition, whether the child was talking, listening or watching,participating or doing, the number of children, adults or both, the childwas interacting with, and whether the activity was adult or childdirected or suggested, was recorded. In total 31,680 observationepisodes were recorded (eighty observations for 396 children).

Looking at the overall picture of child activities in the foursettings, fairly significant differences did emerge between schools andpreschools. On average, children in designated disadvantaged and non-designated disadvantaged school settings were observed in pre-academic activities more frequently than in any other activity category(twenty-nine per cent and thirty-six per cent respectively). Again, thisfinding would seem to reflect the fact that more teachers consideredpre-academic skills their responsibility to teach than any other skill.

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Looking at designated disadvantaged and non-designateddisadvantaged school settings separately, differences do emergebetween the number of observations in the expressive andpersonal/social categories with children in designated disadvantagedschools spending more time in these activities. This could be seen toreflect the beliefs of teachers in designated disadvantaged schools ofthe importance of language skills and social skills with peers.

FIGURE 5 - Child Activities (schools)

Mean °/o of Observations in each major childactivities category (schools)

No activeengagement

rf Personal/Social

DD Schools

NOD Schools

1O 20 3O 40 SO 60 70 SO 90 100

Mean % observations

The overall pattern of child activities in preschools was that ofmore time spread evenly over physical, expressive andpersonal/social activities. Although there was a difference betweendesignated disadvantaged and non-designated disadvantagedpreschools in relation to pre-academic activities (fourteen per centand nine per cent respectively), overall pre-academic activities werenot a prominent activity, as was evident in school settings. PhysicalActivities (including gross motor activities, i.e. active movementusing legs, arms, head and/or body: for example, running, jumping,climbing, football, chasing games, gymnastics and building withlarge blocks, and fine motor activities i.e. using hands, feet, fingers

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and toes: for example, stringing beads, playing with sand, water,handling a small object, and building with lego) were observed onaverage for twenty-five per cent of total child activities observationsin designated disadvantaged preschool settings. In non-designateddisadvantaged settings this figure was twenty-nine per cent.

FIGURE 6 - Child Activities (preschools)

Mean % of Observations In each major childactivities category (preschools)

No activeengagement

Transitional

&* Domestic§0a«3 Personal/Social

p I DO Preschools

I NOD Preschools

1O 20 30 40 SO 60 70 80 90 1 OO

Mean % observations

Discussion

These are a small sample of the results of the IEA Pre-primary Project.They reveal interesting features of the experiences of four-year-olds inIrish early childhood education settings. In particular, we foundsimilarity among teachers in preschool and school settings when theywere asked to nominate the three most important skills they feltchildren should learn between the ages of three and five - with socialskills with peers and language skills considered top priorities.However, a general feature of our findings from observations was thegreat variability between school and preschools in terms of the amountof time spent on different activities. Thus, it would seem that despite

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similar beliefs and expectations among all teachers of four-year olds inIreland, children in schools settings have quite a different experiencethan their counterparts in preschools. In this regard, the findings of anexploratory study of beliefs and behaviours of reception class (juniorinfant) class teachers in two cities, London and Dublin, are of interest(Kernan 1989). The findings of this study indicated that Dublinteachers controlled the children's tasks, behaviours and choice to agreater degree than the London teachers. Furthermore, in explainingtheir teaching strategies Dublin teachers were characterised by taskorientation (which was teacher directed) and a determination that thechildren should learn: while the emphasis among the London teachersappeared more to be on children learning "how to learn".

The Findings of the IEA Pre-primary Project would seem toindicate a discrepancy between the perceived priorities of teachers offour-year-olds in primary schools and the children's experiences in theclassroom. Such a discrepancy is not so evident among preschoolteachers. The reasons for this discrepancy among primary schoolteachers, it is argued, could be multi-faceted. Primary teachers havingachieved a B.Ed, degree are qualified to teach children aged four totwelve years. It is possible that the distinct learning needs of youngchildren are lost sight of in a school environment where there is anemphasis on academic type tasks, achievement and an emphasis on thecorrect way of doing things.

The low percentage of time that teachers in schools, and to alesser extent preschools, proposed to be spent in free, expressive andphysical activities is also a finding of note. It would seem to indicatea need to reconsider curricular policy and practice in early childhoodsettings in Ireland. In doing so we should take as a base what isknown about the integrating value of play and children's overalldevelopment and learning.D

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REFERENCES

Bennett, N. & Kell, J. (1989)A Good start? Four Year Olds in Infant Schools. Oxford:Blackwell Education.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979)The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, Mass:Harvard University Press.

Bruce, T. (1987)Early Childhood Education. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Crahay, M. (1990)Which Research Paradigm for the IEA Longitudinal Quality ofLife Study. Unpublished Paper, University of Liege, Belgium.

Higgins Hains, A., Fowler, S.A., Schwartz, I.S., Kottwitz, E. &Rosenkoetter, S. (1989)A comparison of preschool and kindergarten teacher expectationsfor school readiness, in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 4,pp.75-88.

Irish National Teachers' Organisation (1995)Early Childhood Education. Dublin: INTO.

Kernan, M. (1989)An Exploratory Study of the Beliefs and Behaviours of a Sampleof Reception Class Teachers: London and Dublin Compared.Unpublished M.A. (Psych. Ed.) Thesis, Institute of Education,University of London.

Ojala, M. & Hayes, N. (forthcoming)How Ireland and Finland Support the Development andLearning of Young Children.

Rusher, A. Spidell, McGrevin, C.Z. & Lambiotte, J.G. (1992)Belief systems of early childhood teachers and their principalsregarding early childhood education, in Early ChildhoodResearch Quarterly, 7, pp.277-296.

Sylva, K, Roy, C. & Painter, M. (1980)Childwatching at Playgroup and Nursery School. London:Grant McIntyre.

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NOTES

1 As the majority of teachers/caregivers in the area of earlychildhood education are women we use the female formatthroughout the paper.

2 The term "teacher" is used for the key adult working with thechildren in a school or preschool setting.

3 Details of the schedules used are available on request from theIEA Pre-primary Project at the Early Childhood ResearchCentre.

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APPENDIX

Expectations Questionnaire Skills Categories

1. Pre-academic skills - Child learns basic concepts, improvessmall muscle coordination, and begins to master skills necessaryfor reading, writing and arithmetic.

2. Motor/Physical skills - Child improves his/her coordination,balance and agility through large muscle activities.

3. Self-expression skills - Child learns to express him/herselfcreatively through arts and crafts, music, dance and/or imaginativeplay.

4. Language skills - Child learns to express his/her thoughts andfeelings verbally in a clear and appropriate manner.

5. Social skills with peers - Child learns to share and cooperatewith other children, to respect them and to understand theirfeelings.

6. Social skills with adults - Child learns to listen to, cooperatewith and respect adults.

7. Self-sufficiency skills - Child learns to be independent and tocare for him/herself and his/her belongings in a responsiblemanner.

8. Self-assessment skills - Child learns to assess his/her ownabilities and behaviours, begins to take pride in his/heraccomplishments and develops a sense of self-confidence.

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teacher expectations and the learning experiences of four‐year‐olds in preschool and primary...

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