Michigan public preschool teachers' views on the meaning of risk status and children's readiness for kindergarten.

This study investigated the perspectives of educators who implement public school early childhood programs in the Michigan Department of Education Early Childhood At-Risk Program. Using both questionnaire and interview methodology, the study addressed: the goals of instruction in the early childhood at-risk programs; teacher pedagogy; definitions of readiness for kindergarten; epistemological perspectives regarding how readiness develops; parental responsibility for children's learning; definitions of risk status; the relationship between risk and readiness; and, how definitions of risk status and kindergarten readiness are associated with several other indices, demographic variables, training or previous professional experiences, and job satisfaction. A questionnaire was administered in the spring of 1994 to 194 teachers. Interview data from 19 teachers elaborated on questionnaire findings and were used to determine recurrent themes and analytic generalizations. Findings included the following: Teachers supported developmentally appropriate instructional goals and practices and were resistant to educational experiences they did not consider developmentally appropriate. Bachelor degree teachers had less developmentally appropriate academic goals than other teachers. Educators who felt best qualified to teach at the prekindergarten level had more developmentally appropriate academic goals for children and lower expectations for parental responsibility for children's learning than educators who preferred upper grades. Other findings included teacher frustration at being untrained to meet the social welfare needs of the families of the children in their classes and a lack of a social support system for these parents. Teachers defined readiness primarily in socioemotional terms. However, minority teachers believed children needed more academic readiness skills than did white teachers. Risk status for children was primarily defined as individual attributes/experiences that had little relationship to one another nor to familial and parental risk experiences. Finally, teachers did not articulate in any specific fashion the unique purpose of a program for at-risk children. When interviewed, one-third of the teachers were unable to describe a clear understanding of the experiences which place children at-risk. The implications of the study are discussed.Ph.D.Developmental psychologyEarly childhood educationEducationEducational psychologyPsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/130207/2/9721952.pd