Preschool, understood as being both a physical and psychological environment, is, according to objectives in national curriculum, required to be inclusive for all those who attend it. Previous studies have identified the stereotypical norms of several everyday activities of preschools, including both interactions and premises. The aim of this…

Australian early childhood education still labours with the achievement of universal access and the production of comprehensive and consistent data to underpin a national evidence base. In this article, we attend to the processes led by numbers whereby new practices of quantification, rationalization and reporting are introduced and mastered in a…

This chapter reviews actionable data use--both as an umbrella term and as a specific concept--developed in three different traditions that data/information can inform and guide P-20 educational practice toward better outcomes. The literatures reviewed are known as data-driven decision making (DDDM), education data mining (EDM), and learning…

An emergent data analysis technique was employed to test the veracity of a conceptual framework constructed around visual data use and instruction in science classrooms. The framework incorporated all five key components Vosniadou (2007a, 2007b) described as existing in a learner's schema: framework theory, presuppositions, conceptual domains,…

This study explored parents' and preschool personnel's opinions on factors influencing 3-5-year-old children's sedentary behaviors by applying the socioecological model. Four focus group interviews with preschool personnel (N = 14) and six interviews with parents (N = 17) were conducted in autumn 2014. Two researchers independently analyzed the…

The growth in the availability of longitudinal data--data collected over time on the same individuals--as part of program evaluations has opened up exciting possibilities for evaluators to ask more nuanced questions about how individuals' outcomes change over time. However, in order to leverage longitudinal data to glean these important insights,…

Classroom management is a challenge for beginning teachers. To address this challenge, a model to provide support for beginning teachers was developed, consisting of a one-day workshop on classroom management, followed with online support extending over eight weeks. Specific classroom management strategies included (a) developing a foundation…

This report is a longitudinal examination of "Preschool for All" (PFA) participants, tracking students' experiences across their first four years in elementary school. It builds upon a 2009 study that found that PFA graduates in San Mateo County were better prepared for kindergarten than their classmates who had not attended preschool…

Longitudinal data analysis has long played a significant role in empirical research within the developmental sciences. The past decade has given rise to a host of new and exciting analytic methods for studying between-person differences in within-person change. These methods are broadly organized under the term "growth curve models." The…

This study introduces a novel application of structural equation modeling (SEM) for the analysis of cortisol data that are collected using a pre-post-post design. By way of an extended example, an SEM model is developed that permits an examination of both the overall level of cortisol, as well as changes in cortisol (reactivity and regulation), as…

This paper reports the first part of a 2-year longitudinal study, which examined the impact of age of entry to school on the reading development of 60 summer-born boys during Key Stage One. The sample was drawn from 18 schools in six Local Education Authorities operating different admissions policies. Thirty-one had attended nursery part-time,…

In 2006, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Early Learning Initiative (ELI) to improve the school readiness of Washington State's children through three main strategies: (1) development of high-quality, community-wide early learning initiatives in two communities; (2) enhancement of statewide systems that support early…