Monica Cameron

Citation

Thesis Title
Assessing Four Year Old Children's Learning: New Zealand Early Childhood Teachers' Purposes, Practices and Knowledge

Read article at Massey Research Online:

The assessment of four-year-old children is a critical element of quality teaching and learning in New Zealand early childhood settings. Understanding teachers’ beliefs about assessing four-year-olds is particularly important for supporting effective transition to school and continuity between the early childhood and school sectors. Ms Cameron undertook a mixed methods study, utilising survey and key informant interviews, to investigate teachers’ assessment purposes, practices and knowledge. Findings demonstrated that teachers recognised the important role of assessment, but their knowledge, purposes and practices varied widely, and were constrained relative to international recommendations for quality assessment in early childhood. Continued research, along with professional development and initial teacher education, is needed to support teachers to develop their knowledge of assessment and its multiple purposes. By developing a broader range of assessment tools and developing shared understandings around assessment with new entrant teachers, current rhetoric and misunderstandings around assessment can be challenged.

Supervisors
Associate Professor Peter Rawlins
Professor Claire McLachlan
Associate Professor Tara McLaughlin