Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Speaking From Places: A Phenomenological Deconstructive Study Of Children’S Places, Child-Centric Methods, And Politics., Sugandh Dixit

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation adopts an innovative phenomenological and deconstructive methodology to create a child-centric research process sensitive to facilitating, integrating, and representing children’s voices in designing their school playground. The study developed and employed two novel child-centric methods, an Embedded Walk and a Communal Child-Map Project in order to integrate parents’ and children’s experiences of the school spaces the authorities planned to renovate. Both methods reveal and complicate the socio-political dynamics that structure children’s, parents’, and researchers’ stances towards children’s places and worlds. During the Embedded Walk, children led their parents through their play spaces and they collaboratively documented the childrens’ …

Children's Play, Early Literacy, And Educational (In)Equities., Jane E. Andris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study is about the inclusion of play in early childhood school settings, the contested nature of curricula that are not strictly quantifiable, and the ways that institutional inequity influences children’s access to school-based play. It is situated in a public elementary school kindergarten that centered play in the curriculum with varying degrees of support from a range of stakeholders. This ethnographic phenomenological case study depended on data collection methods of observational field notes and participant interviews, and grounded theory methods were employed for analysis. Findings were that teachers and administrators need clearer understandings of play and its integral connection …

The State Of Outdoor Education In Northeast Tennessee: Preschool Teacher Attitudes Toward Outdoor Education, Cathy Landy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the state of outdoor education in preschool classrooms in Northeast Tennessee, with a specific focus on preschool teachers’ attitudes toward outdoor education. This comparative, mixed-methods study focused in part on teachers’ current beliefs about outdoor education, how they use the outdoor environment, and whether their attitudes influence their lesson planning for outdoor education. Participants were preschool teachers in public, private, church-affiliated, and Head Start preschools in 4 counties in northeast Tennessee. The study sample consisted of 81 participants (80 female; 1 male). Ages ranged from 20-65 years (M = 40.76). The …

Pre-Kindergarten And Kindergarten Teachers' Perceptions Of The Student Growth Portfolio Model In Tennessee, Amanda Pickens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this quantitative study was to discover perceptions of pre-K and kindergarten teachers within public schools in Tennessee regarding the appropriateness of the student growth portfolio model. This study explored teachers’ perceptions of the appropriateness of the math standards, English language arts standards, and the scoring guide included within the SGPM. A quantitative survey was used to understand pre-K and kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of the appropriateness of the 2017-2018 student growth portfolio model. There were 16 pre-K teachers and 51 kindergarten teachers who participated in the survey. Single sample t-tests were used to analyze responses. Research indicated that …

Examining Contributors To Preschoolers’ Classroom Engagement Using Structural Equation Modeling, Hongxia Zhao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate whether and how teacher-child interactions, teacher-child relationships, children’s self-control, parents’ education levels, teachers’ teaching experience and education levels, and classroom physical environment impact children’s engagement levels. Preschoolers from Head Start programs and a university childcare center (N = 135, M = 54.93 months, SD = 7.50) and 15 preschool classroom teachers in East Tennessee participated in the study. Classroom head teachers rated child’s engagement, teacher-child interaction, teacher-child relationships, and children’s self-control using provided questionnaires. The primary researcher assessed the classroom physical environment and determined the reliability for the Children’s Physical Environments …

Preschool Teachers' Perceptions Of Children Prenatally Exposed To Drugs, Brandie D. Maness

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the incidence of prenatal drug exposure increasing, it is important that preschool teachers are prepared and confident in serving the needs of children affected by this exposure. Teachers need more training and education to prepare them for working with children with prenatal drug exposure.

The purpose of this sequential mixed-methods study was to explore the perceptions, training, and shared experiences of preschool teachers when working with 4- and 5-year-old preschool children who have experienced prenatal drug exposure. The researcher invited 77 preschool teachers in northeast Tennessee working in either Head Start or Tennessee Voluntary Pre-K Initiative programs to complete …

The Effects Of An Observation And Interpretation Intervention (Coi/Pals) On Teachers’ Productive And Nonproductive Conversations With Preschool Children, Gina Joe Wohlford

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This multiple baseline single-case design study explored the influence that training in observation and interpretation had on teachers’ meaningful conversations with children. Three preschool teachers (1 from public school and 2 from Head Start) were trained using the Cycle of Inquiry System (Broderick & Hong, 2011) that informs of ways to observe and interpret children’s thinking to facilitate developmentally appropriate conversations.

Teachers documented and interpreted observations of children engaged in small group play. Teachers were surveyed pre-training and post-training about observation, interpretation, curriculum, the teacher’s role, and the purpose of teacher interactions with children. Teachers were interviewed to clarify researcher …

Parent And Teacher Perceptions Of Elementary School Homework, Jimmy Marcum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the perceptions of parents and teachers of elementary school students regarding homework. Specifically, the researcher examined parent and teacher perceptions, perceptions of teachers in kindergarten through fifth grades, and parents of elementary students in kindergarten through fifth grades. In this qualitative study, the researcher analyzed feedback obtained from two focus groups: a group of three parents and a group of three teachers. One-on-one in-depth interviews of seven parents or guardians and seven elementary school teachers were utilized. These interviews were conducted in settings chosen by the participants. All participants worked in, …

Teachers’ Response To Infants’ Nonverbal Communication And Use Of Response To Facilitate A Dialogue, Stephanie Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Beginning with birth, typically developing children use strategies to communicate, and the functions of their language change with maturation and interaction. Since communication cannot exist if both parties do not participate, it is important to not only study the ability of the child, but also the behavior of the adult. Numerous studies have examined the behavior of the parent or other domestic adult, but few have included the study of teacher behaviors.

This study investigated teachers’ response to four types of nonverbal communication attempts made by infants. The gestures included: deictic, affect signaling, object-related, and conventional. The type of response …

Teachers And Their Perceptions About Adaptive Skill Training Within An Early Childhood Comprehensive Development Classroom For Students With Intellectual Disabilities, Jennifer R. Lynberg

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated teacher perceptions about adaptive skill training within an early childhood comprehensive development classroom for students with intellectual disabilities. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding about adaptive skills from a teacher's perspective. The aims of the study were to help educators understand the role of comfort level, importance of adaptive skills, planning for adaptive skills, and connecting adaptive skills to an academic outcome. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was used, and an online survey was completed by 254 special education teachers. The participants that completed the survey were 93% female and on average had …

Water Consumption Of Children In Head Start Classrooms, Bingbing Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) identifies the importance of water consumption and suggested that children need to consume water each day (IOM, 2011). Head Start Performance Standards requires that the children have free access to drinking water throughout the program day (DHHS, 2016a). The first goal of this study was to identify the quantity of water consumed by children during the program day (8am-2pm). This study employed a person-centered approach to explore the water consumption of the children through observations and direct measurement to identify the amount of the water consumed during a program day. Four classrooms from a Head …

An Exploratory Analysis Of A Five Minute Speech Sample Of Mothers Of Children With Selective Mutism, Lisa Kovac

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Selective mutism (SM), an anxiety disorder wherein children have difficulty speaking or communicating when they are uncomfortable, is relevant for the early childhood population as symptoms often manifest upon school entry (Steinhausen & Juzi, 1996) and early treatment leads to better treatment prognosis (Oerbeck, Stein, Wentzel-Larsen, Langsrud & Kristensen, 2014). Bergman, Gonzalez, Piacentini and Keller, (2013) utilized an integrative behavioral treatment for children (ages 4-8) with SM and reported a 75% treatment responder status after 24 weeks of therapy. Their mothers are the focus of this study. This exploratory study examined the content of Five Minute Speech Samples at baseline …

Do Variations In Service Delivery Models Influence Parents' Perspectives In The Early Intervention Program?, Andrasne Weiszhaupt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study has multiple purposes. The first purpose is to investigate whether variations in the Early Intervention (EI) service delivery model influence parents' perceptions of the quality of their EI services. The second purpose is to compare parents' satisfaction level with the early intervention program in the selected counties from Pennsylvania and Florida. The third purpose is to reveal whether families' residency determines the level of access to services. The study subjects were parents and caregivers whose children received services through the Part C early intervention program between January 2013 and January 2017. The targeted population for the study were …

A Descriptive Policy Analysis Of State-Level Universal Preschool Adoption, Holly Higgins Wilcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Presently, the United States does not have a publicly funded, comprehensive, universal ECE system. The fragmented and piecemeal approach to providing ECE creates social injustice and inequity for many young children (Kagan & Roth, 2017; Kagan, 2009). With the absence of comprehensive and streamlined federal ECE policy, several states have attempted to at least provide universal preschool to all four-year-old children. For states that aim to adopt universal preschool, it is critical to understand the factors, political conditions, and policy environments conducive to creating preschool policy change. Although many states would like to provide universal preschool, very few have been …

Studying Facial Expression Recognition And Imitation Ability Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder In Interaction With A Social Robot, Farzaneh Askari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience limited abilities in recognizing non-verbal elements of social interactions such as facial expressions [1]. They also show deficiencies in imitating facial expressions in social situations. In this Master thesis, we focus on studying the ability of children with ASD in recognizing facial expressions and imitating the expressions using a rear-projected expressive humanoid robot, called Ryan. Recent studies show that social robots such as Ryan have great potential for autism therapy. We designed and developed three studies, first to evaluate the ability of children with ASD in recognizing facial expressions that are presented to …

Stem Academic Engagement In Young Children With Autism: A Single Case Design Study, Yixuan Ji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The researcher examined the academic engagement in Circle Time activities and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) activities for three young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who attended a large Orange County Public School, enrolled in an ASD preschool classroom. Given the increasing number of children diagnosed with ASD each year and many STEM job opportunities for individuals with ASD, it is becoming important to know how young children with ASD learn and engage in STEM activities. Strengths of individuals with ASD in the STEM field have been reported in several research studies (Chen & Weko, 2009; Kirchner, Ruch …