Konstantinos Petrogiannis

Aspects of quality in Greek day care centres

The quality of the caregiving environment for young infants in day care centres in Athens was evaluated with 3 global measures; ITERS (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1989), PROFILE (Abbott-Shim & Sibley, 1987a), CCFS (Dragonas, Tsiantis & Lambidi, 1995); and I measure of adult-child interaction (Arnett, 1989). Comparisons between the measures revealed great similarity of between the three global measures, but that the specific adult-child interaction measure appeared to be measuring a different aspect of quality of care. The general quality of care was low, lower than for other countries with similar research, and suggests the need for substantial improvement.RésuméLa qualité éducative de l’environnement dans les centres pour jeunes enfants d’Athènes a fait l’objet de trois évaluations globales: ITERS (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1989), PROFILE (Abbott-Shim & Sibley, 1987), CCFS (Dragonas, Tsiantis, & Lambidi, 1995); et d’une mesure des interactions adulte-enfant (Arnett, 1989). A la suite des comparaisons effectuées, il apparaît que les trois mesures globales sont très semblables mais que l’évaluation spécifique des interactions adulte-enfant appréhende un aspect différent de la qualité de la prise en charge. La qualité générale de la prise en charge s’est avérée faible, plus faible que dans les autres pays où des recherches similaires ont été effectuées; ce qui signale le besoin d’améliorations importantes.

Psychometric Properties and Factor Structure of the Greek Version of the Preschool Learning Behavior Scale

New developments in the kindergartens in Greece have necessitated the availability of assessment tools that cover a wide range of childrens skills and competencies that are related to the promotion of childrens learning and development. The present study focuses on childrens approaches to learning and aims to provide evidence for the Greek form of the Preschool Learning Behaviors Scale as a promising assessment tool for the Greek preschoolers. A nationally stratified sample of 398 boys and girls attending kindergarten classes provided data for the factor structure of the instrument. Two reliable and valid factors emerged describing childrens motivation, determination to engage and persist in learning activities, as well as their responses toward novelty and frustration with an emphasis on attention. Upon identifying childrens strengths and weaknesses when participating in learning activities, teachers could organize rich and challenging learning environments in the classroom, and design activities and intervention programs to foster childrens adaptive behavior and promote later school success.

Criteria for Selection and Rejection of Social Relationships among Children in Urban and Rural Kindergartens in Greece.

This paper reports on preschool childrens social relationships developed in urban and rural kindergarten classes in Greece. We investigated the selection and rejection criteria children use and examined potential criteria differences as a function of a number of socio-demographic variables (childrens age group, gender, parental job status, region of kindergartens’ base). The sample consisted of 70 children (30 boys and 40 girls), 4–6 years old, from one urban- and one rural-based kindergarten. The findings of the study indicated that: (1) the children used two criteria on average; (2) as they grow up, children’s choices and explanations present a quantitative increase; (3) rejections are attributed to the level of their classmates’ negative behaviour, mainly their aggressiveness; and (4) childrens explanations for their positive selections seem to focus on their ‘common interests/play’, ‘closeness/kinship’ and ‘personality characteristics’. These findings are discussed in relation to the studys hypotheses, which they support in part.

Promotion of language learning strategies in the classroom: EFL teachers’ perceptions

ABSTRACT The present paper aims to shed some light on those EFL teachers’ language learning strategy instructional practices which facilitate their learners’ identification and selection of L2 learning strategies (LLS). To investigate the LLS which teachers promoted in mainstream and Muslim minority schools in Greece, we used data elicited through a 47 item specifically-designed questionnaire. Results showed the categories of strategies that are more or less frequently promoted by the research population. Differences in LLS promotion were identified between mainstream and minority school teachers; age and teaching experience influenced the promotion of certain strategy categories (i.e. metacognitive and compensation, respectively) but no differences were found between primary and secondary school teachers or between postgraduate qualification holders and non-holders.