UVicSpace | Institutional Repository
UVicSpace is the University of Victoria’s open access scholarship and learning repository. It preserves and provides access to the digital scholarly works of UVic faculty, students, staff, and partners. Items in UVicSpace are organized into collections, each belonging to a community.
For more information about depositing items, see the Submission Guidelines.
Recent Submissions
Associations between home literacy environment, executive function, and emergent literacy among four-year-old children from low-income families
(2026) Opao, Josellie; Harrison, Gina Louise
Emergent literacy skills are a set of knowledge, skills and behaviors that serve as precursors to conventional reading and writing. Despite a wealth of research investigating the influence of the home literacy environment (HLE) on the emerging literacy skills of preschool children, findings across studies remain inconsistent. More recently, researchers have been interested in the role of executive function (EF) in school readiness skills, including emergent literacy, as well as its potential mediating role between the HLE and early literacy skills. However, their associations remain insufficiently understood, particularly among low-income preschool populations. Therefore, the present study sought to examine the direct effects of the different types of HLE activities (reading books, telling stories, and learning activities) on children’s emergent literacy skills, as well as their indirect effects operating through EF among 4-year-olds from low-income families. The three HLE activities were examined separately to determine whether each would show a differential pattern of association with emergent literacy. Using secondary data from the Baby’s First Years study, the path analysis revealed a significant direct association between EF and emergent literacy. In contrast, no significant direct and indirect effects were found between any of the three HLE activities and emergent literacy via EF. These findings underscore the important role of early EF in supporting the acquisition of early literacy skills prior to school entry.
Speaking and living what it means to be a First Nation educator in the public school system
(2000) Conibear, Frank Lewis; Oberg, Antoinette A.
As a First Nation person and a teacher/counsellor of First Nation students, I explore the question of what it means to be a First Nation educator in the public school system. Important to this inquiry is following Coast Salish protocol regarding the sharing and receiving of traditional knowledge, and showing how this knowledge can shape and inform academic research and classroom teaching. The traditional speaker and the training for war canoe racing are the central metaphors through which questions of relationship to personal identity, to curriculum, to school as institution, and to student are examined. The study uses a variety of writing styles, which is intended to evoke an understanding of the question as if heard/experienced from a traditional speaker. The main sources of this inquiry are personal journal writing and reflections, narrative, related academic research, and conversations with elders.
Values, perspectives and agendas of parent advisory council presidents
(2001) Enfield, Susan M. Rowbotham; Murphy, P. J.
This qualitative, multi-site case study was conducted in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with ten Parent Advisory Council presidents to discover contemporary parents' values, perspectives and agendas regarding public education and parental involvement in educational governance. Furthermore, these presidents were proportionately representative of School District #61 (Greater Victoria)'s Funded Inner City Elementary Schools, and Non-Funded Elementary schools to investigate possible similarities and differences between the groups. To enrich the findings from the individual interviews, each group was interviewed to allow participants to meet their peers, exchange their views and determine whether initial findings were repeated in a group context.
The academic effects of low achieving or inattentive students providing peer support to students with moderate to severe disabilities in general education classrooms
(2000) Bensted, Elizabeth Amy; Bachor, Dan G.
The effects of using inattentive or low-achieving students as peer supports for students with moderate to severe disabilities in general education classrooms were examined in this study. Four inattentive or low-achieving elementary school students were studied as they participated in peer-mediated instruction. Dependent measures included direct observation of academic engagement, homework assignment completion data, and interviews regarding self-esteem. Treatment consisted of serving as a peer support and included training and supervision. Students serving as a peer support assisted students with disabilities by adapting curricula, supervising assignments and facilitating socialization. An ABAB single-case design was used to determine the effects on supporting peers. In addition, follow-up data were gathered for some peers. It was concluded that serving as a peer support person positively affected the academic engagement of inattentive or low-achieving students who were enrolled in inclusive classrooms. Some changes in homework completion behaviour and self-esteem were also noted. The introduced peer support intervention was suggested as an example of an instructional system that could be applied in heterogeneous general education classrooms to improve the participation of some students.
Battle-cries from the front lines: A hermeneutic dialogue with a secondary learning assistance teacher
(2000) Thorsen, Frances G.; Dayton-Sakari, Mary
This study examines a secondary learning assistance (SLA) teacher's struggling practice. The purpose of the work is to question whether or not reflective practice will alter the teaching and growth of this teacher and, if having taught for over twenty years, how will her values and beliefs regarding teaching change through the process of reflection.
The methodology engaged in over a six-month period, is hermeneutics in the form of two hermeneutic conversations. The first conversation revealed five dominant themes relating to the SLA teacher's work: lack of time, lack of teaching, meeting, paperwork, and overwhelming responsibilities and duties. The teacher reviewed these themes. The second conversation, taking place in October, resulted in the immediate non-reflective confirmation of the themes seen as a text disembodied from her own practice. A request to read sections of this body of work led the teacher to see herself as an anonymous teacher. Berating the person, this teacher realized the narrative was this teacher. This visualization, that I have termed reflection-in-the-making, allowed for the co-participant to view her teaching life from a reflective standpoint. A more in-depth review of the themes through the telling of her own 'teacher life story', resulted in her decision to leave teaching.
Eight days later, this teacher began to recognize her core as 'teacher'. Having stripped away the extraneous duties of her job, she found the 'profession' of teaching. Returning to teach, having set her own terms, she worked with non-designated students.
This study relied on narrative for it is the center of teacher practice, recognizable across the profession and often embodied in the 'collective teacher voice'. The work itself illustrates the core of reflective practice; the relationship between reflective practice, narrative, and 'teacher'; and reveals the personal 'self through story.
Moving from theory to practice, this work suggests that policy implications are directly related. Governing bodies must clearly define the SLA teacher and hear their narrative voices; school administrations need to provide more assistance of a secretarial nature to SLA teachers; university education programs need to teach about the importance of narrative, action research, and reflective practice through example rather than theory. More value needs to be given to narrative in educational research, as teachers are narrative.