Years Of Primary Education Research Articles

Habilidades musicales y cognitivas en niños/as de entornos desfavorecidos

Human beings are born with several abilities which are amenable to change. A growing number of studies have focused on the relations between musical and cognitive abilities but research with children from disadvantaged communities is scarce. This study explored the relations between musical and cognitive abilities in disadvantaged children. Participants were 169 children from deprived neighborhoods, attending the second year of primary education in public schools that do not offer music education. Children’s musical abilities (perception) were measured with the Melody, Rhythm, and Memory tests of Montreal Battery for the Evaluation of Musical Abilities and their cognitive abilities, with five WISC-III subtests (Similarities, Vocabulary, Cubes, Picture Arrangement, and Digits). Parental level of education was obtained from a questionnaire on the socio-economic status of children’s families. Results revealed (1) few and weak correlations between musical and cognitive abilities; (2) stronger correlations of Socioeconomic Status (SES) with cognitive than with musical abilities; (3) digit span predicts all musical abilities; 4) a clear factorial distinction between musical and cognitive abilities. Overall, results suggest that disadvantaged children’s musical and cognitive abilities, as measured by the present instruments, are partly independent regarding processing components.

Effects of a Hybrid Program of Active Breaks and Responsibility on the Behaviour of Primary Students: A Mixed Methods Study.

Schools are ideal environments to promote healthy lifestyles and teach values among students. In this sense, the present study aims to verify the result of an Active Break program (AB) within the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) Model in the school environment. The sample consisted of two teachers/tutors from the sixth year of Primary Education and 51 pupils, aged between 11 and 13 years, who were divided into an experimental group (n = 26) and a control group (n = 25). The intervention program lasted 3 months, in which the hybridised methodology was applied during 100% of the weekly classes, computing a total of 156 sessions by the end of the study. It was a quasi-experimental study design that used a mixed methodology combining a systematic observational analysis with semi-structured interviews. The results showed an evolution in the behaviour of the teacher from the experimental group from a controlling style to one centred on the transfer of autonomy, while the teacher from the control group primarily used strategies based on the imposition of tasks and the establishment of organisation, which caused an increase in disruptive behaviours among students. We conclude that the program is adaptable to Primary Education and can be extended to any educational environment to improve the classroom climate and attract the attention of students and, finally, allows for the promotion of new teaching strategies.

Bullying/Cyberbullying en Quinto y Sexto Curso de Educación Primaria: Diferencias entre Contextos Rurales y Urbanos

The aim of this study is to analyse the differences between bullying and cyberbullying in rural and urban areas. The number of students who have participated in this research is 2,162: 52.7% in their 5th year of Primary Education in Spain (ages 10-11) and 47.3 % in their 6th year (ages 11-12) – 50.7% of them were living in the countryside and 49.3% in the city. Although the results showed that the impact of bullying/cyberbullying in rural and urban schools is very similar, some distinctive features have been identified: for example, in rural schools there are more victims of verbal bullying, exclusion, and cyberbullying, whereas in urban schools there is a clear trend of verbal bullying and exclusion. Depending on the context, there is also a significant pattern regarding the victims: in rural schools, victims of this type of abuse are schoolmates, but in urban schools victims and aggressors do not go to the same school. The results also show that the impact of this abuse depends on the size of the city/town where schools are located.

ICT Motivation in Sixth-Grade Students in Pandemic Times—The Influence of Gender and Age

Information and communication technology (ICT) is being immersed in people’s daily lives at an increasingly younger age. It has been key for adolescents to pursue distance education, and their use and mastery of technological means and tools with Internet access has increased. In this study, the motivation, specifically in the interest, digital competence, autonomy, and social interaction, generated by ICTs in the daily lives of adolescents during the pandemic caused by COVID-19 was analyzed. In the study, the objective was to study the motivation, use and commitment generated by ICTs in these students in relation to their gender and age after their confinement to the classroom caused by the first wave of incoming students. An experimental method of descriptive and correlative design was used along with a quantitative method to analyze the data. The data were obtained in the year 2020 through a validated questionnaire committed to the ICT scale used by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment). A total of 924 students from the sixth grade of primary education in the autonomous city of Ceuta (Spain), aged between 10 and 13, participated in the sample. The results reveal that the motivation and commitment to ICT in these age groups were medium in relation to the total mean of results on a Likert-5 scale. Boys scored higher in all the variables analyzed, and both age and gender show correlations, in addition to the factor of prediction. In conclusion, students in the sixth year of primary education, after the confinement period, were medium-high in their use and engagement of ICT. In addition, gender and age affected ICT use and engagement.

Primary School Teachers’ Perceptions of the Level of Development of Low-Order Cognitive Skills Under the Content and Language Integrated Learning Approach

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) has become widespread in many countries around the world in an effort to improve learners’ communicative competence in a foreign language (FL) and content acquisition in non-language areas (NLA). A successful CLIL programme must integrate the 4Cs, i.e., content, communication, cognition and culture. In this study, we focus on the synergies of developing thinking skills by combining language, content and cognition. Specifically, the aim of this study is to examine CLIL teachers’ development of low-order cognitive skills (LOTS) in the subjects of Science and Social Science in the first two years of primary education in the Region of Murcia, Spain. For this purpose, we use a mixed method that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques to test the extent to which LOTS are developed within this integrated approach. The results show that most of the cognitive processes promoted by CLIL teachers are those related to fostering understanding among pupils, which sheds light on the strengths and weaknesses of these programmes and on a wide range of related factors on which further reviews are needed.

Mind the Gap: Measuring Academic Underachievement Using Stochastic Frontier Analysis

We propose using Stochastic Frontier Analysis to estimate pupils’ academic underachievement. We model underachievement as the gap between expected achievement and actual achievement, not due to a learning disability. Our data are a panel for 2,228 Belgian pupils observed over 6 years of primary education. We found that the average underachievement gap is 23.5%. That is, the average pupil does not exploit about one fourth of their potential. Gifted pupils appear to underachieve as much as non-gifted pupils. We also found that class size is a determinant of underachievement. The association between class size and underachievement is non-monotonic, with an underachievement minimum at a class size of about 20 pupils.

Improving motor skills in early education: using smartphones on the Brazilian – Bolivian border

ABSTRACT Background: Smartphones are a resource noticeably inserted into people’s daily lives, but they are not nearly as present within the various educational systems around the world. The improper use of smartphones can certainly carry some risks, such as a sedentary lifestyle or even addiction. For the aforementioned reasons, promoting literacy by using smartphones responsibly from an early age can be a promising element in early childhood education. In fact, there are some previous experiences where mobile technology alongside adequate teaching planning has led to students obtaining positive outcomes, especially within the areas of vulnerability and strong linguistic, cultural, economic, and social differences. Purpose: This research aims to analyse the impact of the educational use of mobile phones on motor development in a diverse context of early childhood education. Method: To achieve this goal, an educational programme was implemented with students in the second year of preschool (aged 4–5 years) and the first year of primary education (aged 5–6 years) at a Brazilian public school located on the border with Bolivia. This included a series of activities using smartphones, linked to complementary activities of a more traditional nature. The study consisted of a quasi-experimental design with a control (n = 28) and experimental group (n = 68). Measurements included the McCarthy Scales of Children’s Abilities, assessed qualitatively and administered as a pre-test and post-test. Results: The results showed how the group of students that participated in the educational programme improved their motor skills (24.544; p < .001) much more than the control group (6.593; p < .001) with a large effect size (.813). The analysis of variance showed significant differences between the experimental group and the control group in the pre-test and post-test for all the dependent variables that fulfilled the assumptions. To explain further, the variable called arms (throwing and catching) accounted for almost 30% of the variance due to the didactic-technological intervention (F = 38.006; p < .001; ηp 2 = .292), and was over 50% for the variable called draw-a-child (F = 93.188; p < .001; ηp 2 = .503) and 60% for the variable called general index (F = 138.599; p < .001; ηp 2 = .601). Conclusions: The main results of the study showed how the smartphone is a social tool, but it can also be a useful ally in the teaching-learning process in early childhood education. Planned mobile literacy can lead to improved motor skills, and it is a break from the stereotype of a sedentary lifestyle linked to smartphones, with especial reference to younger students in contexts of socio-cultural diversity.

Parents\u2019 perceptions of their child\u2019s weight among children in their first year of primary school: a mixed-methods analysis of an Australian cross-sectional (complete enumeration) study

Background/ObjectivesTo describe trends in overweight/obesity in early childhood for all children and those whose parents are concerned about their weight. To describe parents’ perceptions of their child’s weight and differences by their child’s anthropometric and sociodemographic factors.Subjects/MethodsAnalysis of the Kindergarten Health Check, a survey of all children enrolled in their first year of primary education in the Australian Capital Territory. Analysis of detailed data for 2014–2017, including qualitative analysis of parents’ comments on weight, and trends for 2001–2017.Results71,963 children participated in the survey between 2001 and 2017 (20,427 between 2014 and 2017). The average age of children (2001–2017) was 5 years and 9.6 months at the time of their physical health check. 2377 children (3.5%) were classified as obese based on measured body mass index (BMI) between 2001 and 2017, and a further 7766 (11.6%) overweight. Similar proportions were seen for 2014–2017. Among children with overweight/obesity in 2014–2017, 86.4% of parents (2479/2868) described their children’s weight as healthy and 13.3% (382/2868) as overweight/obese. Just 11.5% (339/2946) of parents whose children were later measured with overweight/obesity identified having a concern about their child’s weight.Parental comments varied widely and were often incongruent with the known health risks associated with their child’s measured BMI. Comments from parents whose children were measured as obese often were normalising e.g., “born big, always big. Definitely NOT overweight, just bigger all over”, whilst parents of children in the healthy range expressed concerns about underweight.ConclusionParents do not accurately perceive their child’s weight and few document concerns, even among children measuring in the obese BMI category. This lack of concern makes early interventions challenging as parents are in the “pre-contemplative” stage of behaviour change and may see public health campaigns or clinicians’ attempts to address their child’s weight as irrelevant or unhelpful.

Teacher Competences for Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the First Educational Cycle of Primary Education

&lt;p style="text-align: justify;"&gt;Foreign language teaching in the Slovenian educational context begins in the first grade (age 6). Many studies report a lack of qualified teachers at this stage of learning around the world and numerous authors emphasise the misconception that basic linguistic and didactic knowledge of teachers is sufficient for teaching children. All three Slovenian public universities are aware of this problem and offer pre-service and in-service programmes for (student) teachers who want to specialise in teaching English to young learners. In the present article, we focus on the subject-specific teacher competences for teaching English in the first three years of primary education; namely, linguistic, subject didactic and intercultural competences. We explore teachers’ self-assessment of these competences and their perception of certain elements pertaining to them. The study seeks to answer the following research questions: (1) What subject-specific competences do teachers consider essential for teaching English in the first cycle of primary education? (2) To what extent do teachers believe they have developed certain subject-specific competences? (3) What are teachers’ attitudes toward certain subject-specific competences that the teacher needs for teaching English in the first cycle of primary education? The results of the quantitative survey, in which 100 teachers participated, show that teachers perceive their subject didactic competence to be the most developed and their intercultural competence to be the least developed. Moreover, they consider that a basic level of English is not sufficient for teaching English in the first grades.&lt;/p&gt;

An Analysis of the Orthographic Conversion of the Phoneme /S/

This article describes a study on the learning of spelling, in particular, the multiplicity of graphic representations of the phoneme /s/ by students in the 5th year of primary education. Spelling acquisition related to the phoneme /s/ is highly complex for those learning to write in Portuguese, as it involves different relationships—some of them irregular—between the phoneme and the graphemes that represent it (LEMLE, 1994; MORAIS, 2008). This study takes usage-based phonology as its theoretical foundation (BYBEE, 2001; PIERREHUMBERT, 2001). The theory posits that the experience of language use shapes the grammar and lexicon, and that frequency effects are important. To conduct the present study, the written data of students in the 5th year of primary education at a public school in the municipality of Bom Sucesso, MG, (Brazil) was collected. The results of this work indicate that writing acquisition is based on usage and experience.

ATTITUDE AND PERCEPTION OF TEACHERS ON THE USE OF MOTHER TONGUE IN ESL CLASSROOM IN CAMEROON

Education in the local languages can be one of the means for improving the living conditions of the disadvantaged rural population. The obstacle to Education remains the use of foreign languages for teaching and learning in the early years of primary education. The advent of independence was considered the gateway to complete eradication of the colonial past. On contrary, colonial teaching practices, involving the use of foreign languages, continue to dominate the classrooms. This article revisits the issue of language of instruction in the early years of primary schools in Bafut after many years of mother tongue education implementation. It examines the effect of using English, a foreign language in teaching indigenous Bafut children, in the suburbs who do not have the opportunity to acquire English to the level necessary for effective engagement with the curriculum. The study investigates the opinions and attitude of primary school teachers toward teaching using an indigenous language (Bafut). The researcher used triangulation, involving a variety of data sources including classroom observation, interview, focus group discussion and documentation. Data was collected from twenty four primary school teachers from six purposively selected primary schools in Bafut. The findings revealed attitudinal barriers to using the mother tongue as language of instruction in early years of education. After many years of sensitization, and many admirable polices developed throughout Africa, the efficiency of their implementation is questionable. English and French continue to receive exclusive attention in the classroom as the language of instruction and examinations, whereas the role of Mother Tongue has remained undefined. This had yielded ample evidence to question current practices and suggest the need to adopt new approaches in language use in education.

Learning to resuscitate at school. Study in 8-12 year-old schoolchildren

ObjectiveTo quantitatively assess the learning capacity of school children aged between 8-12 years in basic life support (theory and practice) after a feasible school training programme. Material and methodsQuasi-experimental study with a convenience sample of 567 pupils in 3rd and 5th year of Primary Education, and first year of Compulsory Secondary Education, from 3 public schools in Galicia. They received 2h (one theoretical and another practical) of basic life support training by their Physical Education teachers, as part of the school program. The children were evaluated by a theoretical test and a practical skill test that measured the quality of chest compressions, and assessed the performance of the basic life support sequence. ResultsThe level of knowledge increased with respect to the baseline, and was higher in the higher grades (P < .001). The complete basic life support sequence was carried out by 16.5% of pupils in the 3rd year of Primary Education, 54.4% of pupils in the 5th year of Primary Education, and 28.5% of pupils in the 1st year of Secondary Education (P = .030). The following compression quality parameters improved significantly with age: continuity of compressions (P < .001), percentage of compressions performed at correct depth (P = .002), and median depth (P < .001), while the percentage of compressions with correct decompression decreased significantly (P < .001). ConclusionsAlthough their anthropometric characteristics may not allow them to achieve the ideal quality of this manoeuvre, a 2h theoretical and practical training programme, taught by Physical Education teachers, helps to improve the ability of children younger than 13 years old to recognise the emergency, start the chain of survival, and initiate chest compressions.

The Impact of School Operational Assistance Program Implementation at School Level on Senior Secondary Education Enrollment by Households: Evidence from Indonesia in 2007 and 2014

Education is recognized worldwide as one of the key elements in developing the human capital of a nation for a prosperous future. Given an almost universal enrollment in primary education, many governments have shifted their focus on students’ motivation to continue to and finish their secondary education. The government of Indonesia has made extensive efforts in widening participation in education. With a growing budget for educational expenditure, various government programs have been implemented to assist students in their learning. One such program is the School Operational Assistance Program (BOS), which has been running for two decades. This paper reports on a study aimed to investigate the impact of the implementation of BOS at a school level on senior secondary school enrollment by households using data obtained from the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) recorded in 2007 and 2014. By using Propensity Score Matching (PSM), it was found that students whose schools received BOS during their primary education years were more likely to continue their education to senior secondary education than those whose schools did not receive BOS. This shows that a school subsidy could encourage students to continue their education, particularly for students coming from poorer households.

El trastorno del espectro autista y la arteterapia: una experiencia de aula que favorece la expresión de las emociones

Empirical studies document that creative arts therapies make it easier for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to express their feelings and emotions. This work develops a study that focuses on the implementation of various activities based on Art Therapy in a school aimed at a 6 years old student who is in his first year of primary education diagnosed with ASD to see if he manages to externalize his emotional charge. The present document begins with a theoretical foundation focused mainly on the concept of autism and on the origin of the mentioned therapy, making a historical journey and relating it to this disorder. Afterwards, the design and implementation of the didactic proposal is presented.

Organization of Students and Total Task Time: External and Internal Load Recorded during Motor Activity

The organization of the students and the time taken to execute the learning tasks determine the physical (external load) and physiological (internal load) demands the students support during physical education classes. The aim of this study was to determine which organizational and pedagogical elements used to design different learning tasks for soccer provoke greater external (Player Load (PL)) and internal (Heart Rate (HR)) load and thus help the students to fulfil the adequate physical activity recommendations (moderate to vigorous physical activity for ≥50% of class time). The organizational elements studied were (1) the participation type and (2) total task time, and the pedagogical element of (3) the game situation. A total of 40 students from the fifth year of primary education participated in the study distributed into two class groups. The basic analysis units were the data on physical activity recorded in each of the tasks carried out by the students during the practical sessions (1500 records), and they were recorded using WIMU ProTM inertial movement devices. A descriptive and inferential analysis was performed with the Mann–Whitney U and Kruskal–Wallis H statistical tests. The results recommend the following types of tasks with simultaneous participation: individual games, numerical inequality SSG, numerical equality SSG lasting less than 6 min, numerical equality SSG, and full games lasting between 6 and 10 min. This type of learning task makes the students move more (medium Player Load between 0.80 and 1.20) and at greater intensities (Heart Rate zone 4, between 161 and 181 bpm). Therefore, physical education teachers must take into account the pedagogical and organizational elements studied to make the sessions more intense and associated with health benefits.

Students’ Social Representations of Forced Migration as a Relevant Social Problem and Its Curricular Inclusion at the End of Primary School

The purpose of this paper is to assess students’ social representations of forced migration as a relevant social problem in the last year of primary education and the opportunity for its curricular inclusion. The study was carried out by means of a questionnaire, filled in by 6th-year primary education groups (11–12 years old) (n = 70), in a state-supported private school in the city of A Coruña (Galicia, Spain). The questionnaire was supported by three pictures of forced migrations from the media. In this case, the children had to interpret the pictures through a series of questions that sought to investigate their representations, the causes they identify in this social problem, their opinions, and possible solutions. Finally, the opportunity for the inclusion of social problems as curriculum content was addressed. The study shows that the students are in favor of migrants, that they use concepts from the social sciences in their arguments—albeit simple ones, and that they are in favor of the curricular inclusion of social problems, in which they develop representations through different sources of information.

Specialised Knowledge for Teaching Geometry in a Primary Education Class: Analysis from the Knowledge Mobilized by a Teacher and the Knowledge Evoked in the Researcher

Deepening the specialised knowledge of mathematics teachers is necessary for teaching, and it is one of our concerns as researchers; accordingly, in this study we analyze the knowledge that a teacher mobilizes when giving a first lesson on geometry to a class of fifth year of primary education at a Spanish school. We provide this analysis with a complementary perspective that leads us to broaden our focus of attention to other aspects of classroom management, thus identifying the specialised knowledge evoked in the researcher by the opportunities observed in the classroom. We take opportunities to mean classroom situations that occur as a result of the teacher’s management for which the researcher considers that an alternative management of such situations would be supported by relevant specialised knowledge for the teaching of the given content. Considering the possible alternative management of specific classroom situations makes this specialised knowledge emerge, which, together with that mobilized by the teacher, generates specialised knowledge useful for guiding the content of the training of primary education teachers.

Self-regulated learning, academic achievement and socioeconomic context at the end of primary school

The increase of inequalities and the learning crisis due to COVID-19 pandemic has forced to review the role of education in the attainment of skills to learn throughout life. The purpose of this study is to investigate the incidence of the academic achievement on selfregulation strategies (forethought, inhibition and volitional inhibition), considering the socioeconomical context at the end of elementary school. The SRL strategies are assessed, from the perspective of students and teachers, triangulating measurement in different tasks. 67 students in their last year of primary education participated. The SRL measures were compared using robust tests considering high and low academic achievement and low and medium socioeconomic context (robust version of Welch’s test for two groups, Yuen’s test, and two-way ANOVA based on trimmed means and Winsorized variances). The academic achievement affects and significantly predicts the forethought strategy. In the low socioeconomical context, the students with a high academic achievement maximize their SRL. The modulating role of the school experience in self-regulation is discussed.

Evaluation and Psychoeducational Intervention of Learning Disabilities: A Case Study

Learning Disabilities are one of the most frequent deficits in the teaching and learning process, present between 5 and 15% of the students. Various definitions have been made, such as DSM 5, ICD-11, or other more psychoeducational definitions. The main problem is the unexpected difficulties in learning how to read or write despite having a medium intellectual capacity. Deficits can be found in: cognitive variables, visual perceptual processing, phonological processing, semantic processing, and morphosyntactic processing. The purpose of this paper is to identify the reading and writing learning disabilities of a Spanish-speaking subject. The methodology is a single case study, which is examined of a 7-year-old boy enrolled in the second year of Primary Education at a grant-maintained school in the city of Malaga (Spain). A psychoeducational evaluation proposal is described with different qualitative and quantitative techniques. The results indicate that the subject presents difficulties in his acquisition of Reading and Writing skills, showing signs of cognitive deficits in memory, attention, processing speed, visual and phonological processing, and difficulties in reading and writing. Finally, a proposal for psychoeducational intervention is described, which would be useful in promoting learning and improving the pupil's academic performance. The research shows the relevance of the global evaluation of cognitive and psycho-linguistic variables and the need to establish an early diagnosis. It is also necessary to highlight the relevance of early intervention and the establishment of clear educational guidelines towards the teacher and the family. The main limitations are determined from the single case study and the possible limitations of validity and generalizability of this study to other languages.

Designing levels of a video game to promote spatial thinking

In this article, we present an educational proposal designed to work on spatial geometry and three-dimensional thinking with students in the last years of Primary Education. The proposal is comprised of several activities that combine the use of a classroom videogame and working with manipulative materials to create a representation of the videogame in the real world. The final goal of the sequence is to design levels that could be incorporated into the video game. This exercise enables students to work on visualization and positioning in three-dimensional structures and on a problem-solving task.