Discussion of the Dissertation in its Entirety

5. Discussion

5.4. Discussion of the Dissertation in its Entirety

In its entirety, this dissertation aimed to provide Danish policymakers with new research that could be used to improve the language and emergent literacy outcomes of children attending Danish preschools via improved quality in preschool learning environments. To do so, we sought to describe the process quality of Danish preschools, and their provision of literacy supporting materials. Then we investigated the pooled effects of previous PD interventions with a language and/or literacy focus. Finally, we investigated whether Danish teachers demonstrated awareness of their skill performance of strategies that they recently had learned during a PD intervention. Altogether, this dissertation describes the quality of Danish preschools, what effect can be expected of PD interventions that seek to improve their quality, and an indication of how much teachers learn following a typical PD course.

74 Although we found evidence of high quality in the socio-emotional environment, the quality of the language and literacy environments was consistently low, and our general finding is that there is considerable need for improvement. These results are not necessarily surprising given that the traditional Danish holistic approach to pedagogy focuses on children’s social development and general well-being, but strays away from systematic instruction of children’s pre-academic skills (Jensen, 2009). It is also important to note, that our evaluation of process quality may have even overrated the true quality. This is because we scored the CLASS based on videos in which teachers interacted with no more than five children, which is a teacher-child ratio that is preferable to the ratio they normally work with.

Our investigation of the structural environments also revealed that children have limited access to a wide range of materials that support early interactions with literacy. For example, it was very typical for children to have access to books, but the books did not appear to be intentionally selected or positioned for the children, and very few of the books were alphabet books, or books about numeracy or shapes. Overall, we surmise that Danish preschools do not have a clear conceptualization or plan of how they can support children’s early development of literacy. The variability in findings points towards a general lack of intentionality.

It is our recommendation that steps be taken to support preschools in adopting evidence-based knowledge and practices that can support children’s language and literacy development. Doing so will require extensive PD initiatives and other forms of teacher training. Such steps have already occurred in a limited fashion. For example, the Sprogpakken course (which occurred in 2011-2012) was a large-scale initiative that offered one teacher from every preschool in Denmark a place in the course. We found in Paper 1 evidence that Sprogpakken still had observable effects on instructional practices one year after the four day course took place. However, Sprogpakken was not far-reaching enough.

75 Birman, Desimone, Porter, and Garet (2000) advised that all teachers from a preschool should be involved in PD initiatives, because it can be hard for a single individual who has attended PD to spread change to the practice of all the other preschool personal. Comprehensive, more long-term initiatives are likely needed if we are to increase the language and literacy environments of Danish preschools.

Designing and implementing PD initiatives that can increase the quality in Danish preschools is thus an important new goal, and Papers 2 and 3 offer some insight here. Our meta-analysis revealed that PD interventions do indeed have effects on quality, although structural quality was more malleable than process quality. We also saw that some models of PD were more effective than others. Factors that were found to increase the effectiveness of interventions were intensity, duration, and numbers of formats of PD. Thus, future PD initiatives in Denmark ought to be comprehensive and provide teachers with the possibility to learn over a longer period of time with a high number of PD supports.

We find support for our long-term view of PD from Paper 3 that found that teachers displayed difficulty in recognizing their skill usage of six scaffolding strategies after three days of typical PD workshops. Although the self-coding task that we employed was not a true test of teachers’ learning, it did suggest that most teachers had not mastered the skills we attempted to teach them. Rather, they appeared to overrate their skill usage, and to a large extent in the case of the high support strategies. We find this to be demonstrative of the error in relying on short-term PD initiatives to change teacher practice. If we expect teachers to make comprehensive changes to their practice, they should be afforded the time and supports needed to transform PD opportunities to permanent changes in practice.

As a final recommendation, we suggest that the Danish pedagogical college degree program be reexamined. Denmark is unique in comparison to countries such as Canada and the United States in that most teachers have the same 3½ year pedagogical degree. Because

76 low quality in the language and literacy environments of the sampled preschools was widespread with few exceptions to the rule, it is logical to investigate the need for infusing more education about language and literacy development into the basic degree program.

Future research should investigate the extent to which this could be beneficial.

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89 Part 2

The Three Studies

90 Paper 1

Running head: THE QUALITY OF DANISH PRESCHOOLS

91 The Quality of the Language and Emergent Literacy Environments in Danish Preschools:

Evidence from a Scandinavian Model

Justin Markussen-Brown and Dorthe Bleses The University of Southern Denmark Jessica A. R. Logan and Laura M. Justice

The Ohio State University

Author Note

Justin Markussen-Brown, Institute for Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark; Dorthe Bleses, Institute for Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark; Jessica A. R. Logan, Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University; Laura M. Justice, Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University.

Correspondence to concerning this article should be addressed to Justin Markussen-Brown, Institute for Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, Odense 5230, Denmark. E-mail: justinmb@sdu.dk.

THE QUALITY OF DANISH PRESCHOOLS

92 Abstract

Little research has been conducted in Denmark regarding the quality of the language and emergent literacy environments in preschools. This is despite the fact that approximately

95% of four-year-olds attend preschool (OECD, 2013). In this study, we evaluated the structural quality of the literacy environments in 293 Danish preschools using the Classroom Literacy

Assessment Profile (Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, 2012), and furthermore investigated the process quality of 506 preschool teachers using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008). The results for structural quality were generally low with children having limited access to materials that support literacy development. In terms of process quality, emotional support was generally high, classroom organization was medium-high, and instructional support was low. Negative associations were found between children’s socioeconomic status and process quality, but the relation was weaker with instructional support, possibly because it was low for all children. Teacher background variables such as age and education were not associated with CLASS scores, but male teachers scored lower on all CLASS domains. Overall, Danish preschools provide warm and emotionally supportive environments to children, but the level

In document Establishing Quality in Preschool Language and Literacy Environments (Sider 74-0)