Bob Perry

Making meaning: children’s perspectives expressed through drawings

The importance of listening to children’s perspectives has been emphasised in a wide range of recent research, using a variety of strategies. This paper explores the use of drawing as a strategy to engage with young children around the topic of starting school. It describes the approaches we have used, examines the benefits and challenges we have encountered and discusses implications of using drawings as a strategy for engaging with young children (aged 4–6 years) in research.

trusting children's accounts in research

Much of the current rhetoric in areas of child and family research and in early childhood education emphasizes the importance of listening to children in research that has a direct impact on them. Despite this, there remain qualms in some research contexts and amongst some researchers about the reliability, validity and generalizability of childrens research input. This article argues that engaging with children as research participants requires a commitment to, and the facilitation of, listening to and hearing their accounts in research. Drawing on research conducted in both New South Wales and Queensland, Australia, this article adopts the stance that children are active and effective participants in research. It examines selected protocols that stand to support such engagement. Specifi cally, it considers issues of ethics and research protocols, mechanisms of engagement, principles of co-construction of the research interaction, the analysis and dissemination of data, and negotiating the research space. This article contributes to methodological understandings of research with children.

Researching with Children: Ethical Tensions.

There is a need to reflect on both the processes and outcomes of the range of approaches aimed at promoting children’s engagement in research, with the specific intent of listening to children’s voices. This article considers some of the ethical tensions we have experienced when engaging children in research about their prior-to-school and school environments and their perspectives of the transitions between these environments. Examples from projects conducted in Iceland and Australia are drawn upon to illustrate these tensions and, to reflect on the strategies and questions we have developed to guide our engagement with children. This article raises issues rather than offering simple solutions. We suggest that there are a number of contextual and relational variables that guide our research interactions, and no ‘one best solution’ applicable to all contexts. Our aim in sharing these tensions is to stimulate further debate and discussions around children’s participation in research.

A Framework for Characterizing Children's Statistical Thinking.

Based on a review of research and a cognitive development model (Biggs & Collis, 1991), we formulated a framework for characterizing elementary childrens statistical thinking and refined it through a validation process. The 4 constructs in this framework were describing, organizing, representing, and analyzing and interpreting data. For each construct, we hypothesized 4 thinking levels, which represent a continuum from idiosyncratic to analytic reasoning. We developed statistical thinking descriptors for each level and construct and used these to design an interview protocol. We refined and validated the framework using data from protocols of 20 target students in Grades 1 through 5. Results of the study confirm that childrens statistical thinking can be described according to the 4 framework levels and that the framework provides a coherent picture of childrens thinking, in that 80% of them exhibited thinking that was stable on at least 3 constructs. The framework contributes domain-specific theory for characterizing childrens statistical thinking and for planning instruction in data handling.

Starting School: Perspectives of Australian Children, Parents and Educators.

Starting school is an important time for young children, their families and educators. Data gathered from interviews and questionnaire responses from approximately 300 parents, 300 educators and 300 children have been used to describe the most important issues for children, parents and educators as children start school in New South Wales, Australia. Using grounded theory, a series of categories of responses was devised that reflected the issues raised by respondents. These categories related to: knowledge needed to start school; elements of social adjustment required in the transition to school; specific skills to be mastered; dispositions conducive to a successful start to school; the rules of school; physical aspects of starting school; family issues; and the nature of the educational environment. These categories and the relative value attributed to them by the different groups of respondents form the basis of this article.

Researching with Children: Insights from the Starting School Research Project.

The Starting School Research Project, based at the University of Western Sydney, Australia, promotes the involvement of children in research concerning their transition to school. Using examples of approaches that have been utilised to engage children as part of the research on their transition to school, this paper explores some of the philosophical and methodological issues involved in this stance. Approaches including conversational interviews, oral and written journals, drawings, reflections and digital photographs have been successfully introduced in order to empower four‐ and five‐year‐old children to express what they see as important as they start school. Issues of equity and inclusiveness demand a variety of approaches such as these. However, as with all research approaches, both challenges and advantages are associated with each aspect. The paper concludes with a general consideration of the challenges and rewards of engaging young children in researching important aspects of their lives.

Head mathematics teachers’ beliefs about the learning and teaching of mathematics

This paper reports on an investigation of teacher beliefs concerning the nature of mathematics and the learning and teaching of mathematics. The focus is on the espoused beliefs of 40 Head Mathematics Teachers in Australian secondary schools. These beliefs are compared with the espoused beliefs of classroom mathematics teachers in the same schools and with recent mathematics education reform documents from Australia and USA. A confirmatory factor analysis of responses from a specifically constructed survey identified two factors (child-centredness and transmission) which form the basis for the comparative analysis. Interviews with eight of the Head Mathematics Teachers who responded to the survey provide further detail for these comparisons. The ramifications of the similarities and differences in espoused beliefs of the different groups of teachers and the reform documents are discussed.

EARLY CHILDHOOD MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

During the review period, there has been unprecedented political interest in early childhood education in Australasia (taken to be education of and for children aged between 0 and 8 years old). In New Zealand a review of the implementation of the respected prior-to-school curriculum framework Te Whariki (Ministry of Education [MoE], 1996) has been recommended. For schools, the New Zealand Curriculum (MoE, 2007) was introduced in 2007. In Australia, the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (Department of Education, Employment and Workforce Relations [DEEWR], 2009) was implemented from 2010 and Phase 1 of the implementation of the Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2010), including mathematics, has begun.

Young children's decisions about research participation: opting out

Abstract Participatory approaches to engaging in research with young children place a great deal of emphasis on childrens rights to choose whether or not they wish to be involved. A number of recent studies have reported a range of strategies both to inform children of their research rights and to establish options for checking childrens understanding of these rights throughout the research process. This paper seeks to move the debate around childrens informed agreement to participate forward by considering the ways in which children might indicate their dissent – their desire not to participate – at various stages of the research process. Drawing on examples from Iceland and Australia, involving children aged two–six years, the paper explores childrens verbal and non-verbal interactions and the ways in which these have been used, and interpreted, to indicate dissent. Reflection on these examples raises a number of questions and identifies several tensions, as well as offering some suggestions for ways in which researchers can recognise childrens decisions to opt out of research participation.

Who's Ready for What? Young Children Starting School

Each year, as children start formal schooling, there are discussions between parents and educators about children who are, or are not, ‘ready for school’. The first section of this article examines issues of readiness, definitions of readiness, and considers some implications of decisions about childrens readiness status. Following this, and in the context of different perspectives of readiness, the views of Australian children, parents and educators are considered. These views indicate some similarities between the expectations of parents and educators, and some differences between what children and adults regard as important in the transition to school. Implications for early childhood education and educators are considered.