PHD-Department of Educational Psychology

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Browsing PHD-Department of Educational Psychology by Author "Gatumu, H. N."

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    Cognitive strategy use for explicit and implicit text meaning by urban, peri-urban and rural primary school pupils in Kisumu municipality
    (2012-04-03) Dinga, Jotham Ndolo; Gatumu, H. N.; Agnes Gathumbi
    The study investigated two aspects of reading comprehension for the purpose of explaining some of the reasons for poor comprehension performance by primary school pupils. First, it investigated silent reading behaviors viewed to negatively affect comprehension. Secondly, it investigated gender, school level and home background differences in the use of cognitive strategies to construct explicit and implicit meaning from expository, narrative and documentary texts. An ex post facto design was used. Study subjects were 785 standard 5 and 7 pupils from three schools randomly selected, one each from an urban, peri-urban and rural area. Each school had 4 streams (2 in standard 5 and 2 in standard 7). From each stream, 6 pupils (3 girls and 3 boys) were randomly chosen for observation while silently reading text. The rest of the class did a group comprehension task testing implicit and explicit meaning from expository, narrative and documentary texts. Observation data was obtained using a checklist. Observed behaviors were categorized and reported as quantitative data in the form of frequencies and percentages. Some of the pupils showed the reading behaviors which negatively affect comprehension, such as not reading entire text before embarking on question-answering (42%), moving lips (61%), pointing at words (21%s), moving head (42%) and mumbling (33%). Gender and school level differences in using strategies for explicit and implicit meaning and for different types of texts were tested at .05 level of significance using Independent Samples 1 test. One way ANOVA was used to find out if there were home background differences in strategy use for explicit and implicit meaning, and also for different types of text. For explicit meaning, there was no significant gender difference (t (711) = -1.170,p >.05). For explicit meaning, there was a significant difference with Standard 5 performing better than Standard 7 (t (711) = 2.020, p < .05). Significant difference was also found for different home backgrounds (F (2, 710) 184.015, p -, .05), with urban doing best and rural doing worst. For implicit meaning, there was no gender difference in strategy use (t(711) = 1.25,p > .05). Significant difference was found for school level in the case of implicit meaning (I (711) = -14.690, p <.05) with Standard 7 performing better. In the case of home background, there was significant difference in strategy use for implicit meaning (F (2, 710) = 107.786, p < .05). Regarding the use of cognitive strategies for different types of text, no significant gender difference was found for expository text (I (711) == -.732, p > .05). For narrative text, also no significant gender difference was found in strategy use (I (711) = -.677, p > .05) Even for documentary texts, no significant gender difference was found (I (711) = -2.14, p > .05) Also eoncerning the different types of text, Standard 7 were sigriificantly better than Standard 5 in strategy use for expository text (I (711) = -7.675,p <.05). Standard 7 did not differ significantly from Standard 5 (I (711) = -.677, p > .05). Standard 7 also did significantly better for documentary text (I (711) = -2.014, p< .05). In the case of home background differences, urban children performed best followed by peri-urban, with rural performing worst at .05 level for all the three types of text. It was recommended that reading be introduced as a subject in primary teacher training colleges, parents be more involved in their children's learning, teachers stop giving comprehension exercises instead of teaching comprehension strategies and further research be done on teachers and how they teach reading.
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    Maternal Employment and its Impact on Pre –adolescent Social Adjustment in Selected Primary Schools in Nairobi
    (2011-05-01) Mugambi, Doyne Kageni; Tumuti, S. T.; Gatumu, H. N.
    The main purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of maternal employment on preadolescent social adjustment in Nairobi. It also investigated whether there was any gender difference in pre- adolescent social adjustment between children of employed and non employed mothers. In addition, the study investigated the differences in social adjustment between pre-adolescents who were taken care of by specific caregivers. An ex - post facto research design was used for the study. The subjects of the study were 549 respondents. Specifically, 195 were boys and 228 were girls. All of them were from six schools. One hundred and twenty (120) mothers were used for the study whereby 60 were employed and 60 were non - employed. Six (6) class-teachers were used from the selected schools. To obtain the impact of maternal employment on pre-adolescent social adjustment, data was obtained from: - the Peer Nomination Behavioral Assessment, Peer Rating scale, the Teachers' Social Competence Scale, a Teacher-Child Rating Scale and a questionnaire for the mothers. The responses were scored after which data was computer analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Kruskal-Wallis Non Parametric ANOVA at 0.05 level of significance was used in the analysis to establish whether there were differences or not in the variables under study. There was a significant relationship between pre-adolescent social adjustment and maternal employment status at 0.05 level of significance. There was no significant difference in mother-child interaction between children of employed and non-employed mothers at 0.05 level of significance. There were significant gender differences in preadolescent social adjustment between children of employed and non-employed mothers at 0.05 level of significance. The Post Hoc test revealed that boys of non-employed mothers contributed to the significant difference. There was no significant difference in pre-adolescent social adjustment among children who are left under specific caregivers at 0.05 level of significance. There was no significant difference in pre-adolescent social adjustment between children who are in boarding schools and day schools at 0.05 level of significance. There was a significant relationship between pre-adolescent social adjustment and educational level of the mother at 0.05 level of significance. The Post Hoc test showed that children whose mothers attained secondary school level of education contributed to the significant relationship. In relation to these findings, it was recommended to the policy makers that there is need for developing training programmes for caregivers (current and potential) in order to build -their capacity for improved pre - adolescent social adjustment. In addition, there is need to develop policies to support such training programmes. Parents were hereby recommended to at least obtain house helps from recognized institutions. Teachers on their part were recommended to assist in training pupils in social skills that will assist them to adjust well to their school environment, including home. Further research was recommended with regard to finding out whether similar results would be found in other provinces in Kenya.
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    Quality of pedagogical ecology and its effect on cognitive development of children from community - based pre-schools in Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar
    (2011-05-01) Mwaura, P.A.M.; Gatumu, H. N.; Tumuti, S. T.
    The aim of this study was to examine the quality of the teaching and learning environment (pedagogical ecology) in community-based preschools sampled in Kenya Coastal region, Uganda and Zanzibar, and how it influences the cognitive development of children. The quality of pedagogical ecology of 47 (25 MRC and 22 non-MRC) preschools (14 urban, 20 peri-urban and 13 rural) was assessed using Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). At least one teacher of the participating children class in each year of follow-up was observed on their interaction, communication and participation with the children using teacher-child interaction rating scale (T-CIRS) adapted from Arnett (1989) care giver interaction scale (CIS). The preschool teacher's pedagogical beliefs were assessed through a teachers pedagogical beliefs rating scale (TPBS). A total of 563 children (291 from MRC and 272 from nonMRC) were tested on their cognitive attainment at three (pre-test, post test 1 and post test 2) time points during preschool (mean age points 4.2, 5.3 and 6.4). Using descriptive and correlation statistics, the status and quality of preschools pedagogical ecology, teacher-child interaction, and teacher's pedagogical beliefs were analysed. Considering the hierarchical and longitudinal nature of the cognitive data whereby time points are nested within children and nested within preschools multilevel regression analysis was conducted to find out the effects of the pedagogical ecology on the cognitive development of the preschool children. This study found that, 1) The quality of the teaching and learning environment in East Africa as indicated by the ECERS mean score of the 47 preschools observed is generally low (x=3.71, sd=1.29). Of the 47 preschool assessed, 15(31.9%) of them had less than ECERS mean score of 3 (the risk cut-off score) with only 9 (19.1%) scoring higher than 5 (good quality). The range of scores as indicated by ECERS is 1.58-6.09; with a wide variation of the quality of pedagogical ecology across types of preschools and preschool programmes; 2) rural preschool have better quality of pedagogical ecology compared to urban and peri-urban preschools; 3) the quality of teacher-child interaction is modest, however there are many preschool where negative forms of interaction is in practice. The positive teach-child interaction is positively and modestly correlated with the quality of teaching an learning environment (pedagogical ecology) while the negative styles of teacher-child interaction are negatively correlated with the quality of pedagogical ecology, 4) there is a no significant relationship between teachers pedagogical beliefs and the teacher-child-child centred instructional practices and 5) the quality of pedagogical ecology is a significant predictor of preschool children cognitive development though not invariantly across time. The study recommends among other things government and community increment of financial support, increased monitoring and evaluation of preschool teaching and learning environment and comprehensively robust research on the role of preshool quality in the development of children in East Africa undertaken.