BELIEFS AND EXPECTATIONS OF PARENTS, PRIOR-TO-SCHOOL EDUCATORS AND SCHOOL TEACHERS AS CHILDREN START SCHOOL

Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, December, 2002.

ABSTRACT

THE STARTING SCHOOL RESEARCH PROJECT

Starting school is a major life transition. The ways in which this transition is managed, by all involved, can have a significant impact on children's views of themselves, children's interest and motivation to be at school, and on their future school success. As well, the transition to school impacts upon families and family life, as adjustments are made to accommodate the demands of school. Educators too, feel the impact of transition to school as they respond to the needs and demands of a new group of children and parents, or as they farewell children and parents with whom they have established relationships.

Over the past four years, the Starting School Research Project has investigated the perceptions and expectations of all involved in children's transition to school. Interviews with parents, educators and children, combined with an extensive questionnaire distributed to adult participants, have yielded a great deal of data about what each of these groups of people regards as important as young children start school. While the results indicated some similarities among the expectations of adult respondents-for example, that issues related to children's social adjustment were the major concern-they also indicated that the expectations of adults and the children experiencing transition vary considerably. These results have been reported elsewhere (for example, Dockett & Perry, 1999a; Dockett & Perry, 1999b; Dockett, Perry, Howard, & Meckley, 2000; Dockett, Perry, Howard, & Tracey, 1998; Perry, Dockett, & Howard, 2000; Perry, Dockett, & Tracey, 1998). As well as differences in expectations, the adult data indicated some clear delineation of 'teacher' roles as opposed to 'parent' roles, both in preparing children for their school experience and participating in children's ongoing school experiences (Dockett & Perry, 2001a; Dockett, Perry, & Howard, 2000).

Analysis of the interview and questionnaire data provided the basis for the development of a set of ten guidelines for effective transition programs (Dockett & Perry, 2001b). The guidelines are being used in a range of locations across NSW as the basis for assessing and enhancing current transition programs, and to develop new and responsive programs.

QUESTIONNAIRE DATA: STATEMENTS ABOUT SCHOOL TRANSITION

The guidelines were derived from analysis of interview and questionnaire data from adults, interviews with children and an extensive review of the literature. The guidelines help create a context within each of the location groups, where issues and beliefs about starting school can be discussed, challenged, defended and altered.

Most people hold beliefs about what is important as children start school. These beliefs come from a number of sources, including people's experiences of school and schooling, as well as public commentary and vicarious experiences. On the basis that beliefs underpin practice (Charlesworth, Hart, Burts, & Hernandez, 1991; Stipek & Byler, 1997), the Starting School Research Project included in the questionnaire a series of belief statements that had been identified through the pilot study interviews. Including them in the questionnaire was one way to test the extent of agreement with these views.

METHOD

From a series of pilot studies conducted in 1997 and 1998, the Starting School Research Project developed an extensive questionnaire (Perry et al., 1998) which was distributed to parents and educators across New South Wales during the period 1998-2000. Using location groups as a base, services within the local area were contacted and invited to complete and/or distribute the questionnaires. Hence, the focus was on sampling a wide range of areas, which varied according to the criteria used to identify location groups: geographical location; socio-economic status; cultural diversity and special needs.

The questionnaire sought responses from parents and educators about their expectations and perceptions as children started school. To avoid excessive length, the questionnaire was divided into two forms with several common questions. This paper reports the analysis of one question from Form B of the questionnaire. The item reads:

A list of 20 statements follows. For each activity listed, respondents were asked to indicate their opinion on a four-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Responses to this item from 284 people have been analysed-representing a response rate of approximately 34%. These consisted of 149 parents of children who have just started, or are just about to start school, 102 teachers in schools (government, Catholic and independent), and 33 teachers/educators from prior-to-school settings (pre-school, long day care and occasional care). Demographic information indicates that respondents are from across all of the location groups.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

For the purposes of this report, questions relating to similar issues have been grouped together, even though they appeared in random order in the questionnaire. As well, the responses to each statement have been collapsed to two categories-Disagree (a combination of the original Strongly Disagree and Disagree categories) and Agree (a combination of the original Agree and Strongly Agree categories). For each statement, frequencies for each of these two categories have been calculated and are shown, for each of the groups in the following order: parents (P), teachers in schools (ST) and teachers in prior-to-school settings (P/S), in Tables 1-7 below. Missing data have been omitted in the calculation of the percentage responses for each category.

For each statement, a two-way contingency table analysis was conducted to evaluate whether agreement with the statement was related to the respondent being a parent, a teacher in school, or a teacher in a prior-to-school setting. Significant relationships were found for five of the statements. Follow up pairwise comparisons were conducted to evaluate the differences in these relationships. Details of these are given in the following analysis.

Table 1

There are no statistically significant differences between the groups of respondents for this set of statements. Clearly, most respondents do not believe that starting school should be an automatic process regardless of the perceived 'readiness' of the child. On the other hand, there is a recognition by many respondents that being ready for school is not the same as being ready to learn.

Similarly, there are no statistically significant differences between the groups of respondents for the results reported in Table 2. However, there are some interesting issues raised by the results. One of these is the oft-held belief that ensuring that the children starting school are five years old will result in a more successful transition and future. This is countered here by the agreement by more than 60% of each group of respondents that age is not a good predictor of school success. This issue is discussed later in the paper.

Table 2

Table 3

Few respondents agree with the statement that children who do not settle into school by the end of Term 1 should be kept at home. However, the same level of consistency is not apparent for the statement that children become ready for school by going to school. Prior-to-school teachers differ significantly from parents [Χ² (1, N=175)=7.73, p <0.01, Cramer's V=0.21] and school teachers [Χ² (1, N=131)=3.91, p <0.05, Cramer's V=0.17] in their responses to this statement, suggesting more strongly than the other groups that there is more to children becoming ready for school than simply going to school.

Table 4

There is a general agreement that all children should go to preschool/day care before they start school. Perhaps not surprisingly, this is strongest among the prior-to-school teachers but it is still substantial among with the other two groups.

The statement that preschool/day care teachers are more approachable than school teachers has resulted in a wide diversity of views among the groups of respondents. While both groups disagree substantially with the statement, school teachers differ significantly from parents in the strength of this disagreement [Χ² (1, N=244)=14.79, p <0.001, Cramer's V=0.25]. A slender majority of prior-to-school teachers agree with the statement. This results in there being significant differences between them and both the school teachers [Χ² (1, N=131)=44.27, p <0.001, Cramer's V=0.58] and the parents [Χ² (1, N=173)=13.62, p <0.001, Cramer's V=0.28].

While the vast majority of the other two groups disagree with the statement that Kindergarten classes should be more like preschool/day care, a majority of the prior-to-school teachers agree with it. This group differs significantly from both parents [Χ² (1, N=178)=28.21, p <0.001, Cramer's V=0.40] and school teachers [Χ² (1, N=131)=28.84, p <0.001, Cramer's V=0.47].

Table 5

All three of the respondent groups seem to agree that girls and boys should start school at similar ages.

Table 6

There is strong disagreement among all groups of respondents with the statement that children should repeat Kindergarten if they have no friends at school. On the other statement reported in Table 6, however, each of the respondent groups has provided significantly different results to both of the other groups: parents and school teachers [Χ² (1, N=248)=7.33, p <0.01, Cramer's V=0.17], school teachers and prior-to-school teachers [Χ² (1, N=131)=13.11, p <0.001, Cramer's V=0.32], and prior-to-school teachers and parents [Χ² (1, N=177)=4.75, p <0.05, Cramer's V=0.16].

Table 7

For each of these statements, there appears to be substantial agreement among the groups of respondents. Most respondents disagree with both of the statements: real school does not begin until Year 1 and children from non-Anglo backgrounds struggle when they start school. The statistical analysis has shown a significant difference between the responses of school teachers and parents on the first of these statements [Χ² (1, N=249)=5.74, p <0.05, Cramer's V=0.15] but this is hardly of any import, given the small proportion of parents agreeing with the statement.

The statement: teachers should try to meet the expectations about school held by parents/guardians has split the respondents substantially, though not to a statistically significant amount.

There were four statements where significant and substantial differences among the responses from the respondent groups were found. These are summarised below.

Figure 1

DISCUSSION

On many of the 20 statements, the three groups of respondents have provided similar levels of agreement and disagreement. On five statements, this has not been the case between some pairs of the respondent groups. The exploration of these similarities and differences provides an opportunity to consider some seemingly widespread beliefs about what issues are important in children's transition to school.

Overall, there is acceptance of the statement that children can be ready to learn but not ready for school. This could be regarded as recognition that much learning occurs prior to school, but that this, in itself, may be insufficient to regard children as 'ready for school'. There is also consistent agreement with the statement that children can be ready for school but not ready to learn. This is interesting, as it implies that going to school involves more than learning. It may be that respondents are referring to elements such as physical maturity, or even age, in responding this way. The issues and implications of this view are worthy of further study.

Finally, in this set of statements, there is consistent disagreement with the statement that schools should accept all children ready or not. This statement reflects a particular view of readiness-that is, that readiness is a feature of individual children, and that children either are ready, or they are not. The view that readiness is a contextual issue, dependent upon the context and the interactions within that context does not seem to be reflected here. The indication that schools should not accept children who are deemed 'not ready for school' has a number of implications, including:

• What happens to children who are 'not ready' for school? Do they have access to high quality early childhood services until they 'become ready'?
• How do they 'become ready' for school?
• What is the basis for decisions about readiness and when, and by whom, are these made?
• How does this view match the legal obligation of schools to accept children of a specified age?

In many discussions about starting school, there is a great deal of rhetoric about age, the importance of age, and even recommendations about changing the starting school age for children. Some of this is reflected in the responses to statements about age in the questionnaire. Over 60% of all respondents agreed that children should be 5 before they start school. At the same time, over 60% also agreed that age was not a good predictor of school success. At least 60% again disagreed that children who start school too early do not learn. Further, at least 50% of teachers (school and prior-to-school) agreed that children who start school older learn better than younger children.

Despite the recognition that age is not a good predictor of school success, there remains a focus on age as a determinant of readiness for school. In part, this is because the only criterion children need to meet in Australia, is age-related. There is no routine developmental screening or readiness testing to determine whether or not a child starts school-a position which the authors believe is to be applauded. However, issues about age tend to become clouded in issues of maturity. With remarkable consistency, children who are described as 'immature' are also the youngest in any group. What seems to be lost is the realisation that regardless of the age of school entry, there will be great variation among children, in terms of learning, maturity, development, and many other areas. Raising the age of school entry will not eliminate these differences.

There is agreement among respondent groups that once a child has started school, they should remain in school, even if it seems that they have not settled into school by the end of Term 1. This is reflected in the high rates of disagreement, among all groups, recorded in response to the statement children who do not settle into school by the end of Term 1 should be kept at home. At least 80% of respondents in each group disagreed with this statement. At least 60% of respondents in all groups also disagreed with the statement that children become ready for school by going to school.

Both of these responses suggest a view which locates readiness for school within individual children, rather than as an element of context. On the one hand, children are regarded as needing to make adjustments to school. The implication is that if these adjustments have not been made during the first term, then more time at school, not less, is needed in order for children to 'get used' to school. On the other hand, there is a strong view that children must get ready for school somewhere else other than school, possibly before starting school. However, this raises a range of questions, including 'How can children get ready for something they have not yet experienced?'.

Just as children are very clear about the differences between school and prior-to-school settings (Dockett & Perry, 1999a), so, too, are parents and teachers. Parents, school teachers and teachers in prior-to-school settings tend to agree that children should experience some form of preschool or day care before starting school.

While many researchers promote the importance of continuity of learning between prior-to-school and school contexts (for example, Briggs & Potter, 1995), respondents to the questionnaire did not share the belief that Kindergarten classrooms should be more like preschool or day care settings. The contrasting view, that preschools and day care services should be more like Kindergarten classrooms was not tested in this study but there is some evidence that, as part of the preparation for school processes, many prior-to-school settings do adjust their programs and environments to be more like their perception of Kindergarten classrooms (Perry, Dockett, & Simpson, 2002).

There was substantial agreement with the views that boys and girls should start school at about the same age. This is in contrast with some popular notions that boys should start school a year after girls, or at the least, that boys should be held back until they are at least 5 years old (Biddulph, 1998).

This was a surprising finding, as within each of the Starting School Research Project's location groups, age is one issue that is canvassed on a regular basis. It is also an issue raised in several popular books for parents (for example, Irvine, 2000; Taal, 2000). Anecdotally, the most common comments relate to boys needing to be older than girls in order to function optimally in the classroom. On numerous occasions, parents report agonising over the decision about whether or not to enrol a boy who is eligible for school-say at age 4 years and 6 months. Conversationally, teachers also indicate that the group of 'young boys' are the least adaptive to the school environment. Yet, these comments are not supported in the responses reported in this paper. Rather, over 90% of all groups indicated that girls should not start school before boys, and over 85% indicated that boys should not start school later than girls. These responses may indicate that gender is only one of many issues to be considered in relation to school readiness.

As a strategy, grade retention seems to have declined in popularity in NSW during recent years. This may be because of the adoption of an outcome-based curriculum, where there is greater flexibility for children to work at different levels, and for teachers to respond to this (Board of Studies, NSW, 2000). However, respondents in this survey indicated support for the notion of repeating Kindergarten if children are struggling with the work. Whilst all groups agreed with this statement, teachers in prior-to-school settings were stronger in their agreement with this view that the other groups.

The notion of repeating a grade raises some interesting issues. US research into Kindergarten grade retention indicates that "children who are required to repeat Kindergarten are a comparatively disadvantaged group in ethnic, developmental, and socioeconomic terms" (Zill, 1999, p. 99). In addition, the majority of children repeating Kindergarten were boys. Surveys of US children who repeated Kindergarten indicate that these children were no more likely to do better than other children in later years (Zill, 1999).

Three different issues are grouped in this category. The statement, that teachers should try to meet the expectations about school held by parents/guardians, received majority support from all groups, although, among the parents and school teachers, more than 40% of the respondents disagreed with the statement. This overall result may well reflect the increasing research support for the view that parents and teachers need to work together in order to promote the best learning outcomes for the children (Christenson, Rounds & Gorney, 1992). What this statement does not reflect is the difficulty of achieving a workable and responsive partnership between parents and teachers. The goal of working as partners is admirable and attainable in many instances. However, it is also possible that teachers find themselves "trapped in blaming families or viewing the home as auxiliary, merely providing supplemental support for the work of the school" (Kellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez & Bloom, 1993, p. 135). Equally, parents can find themselves unwilling to become heavily involved in school issues, for a variety of reasons.

General disagreement was reported in response to the statement that children from non-Anglo backgrounds struggle when they start school. Of relevance to this discussion is that the majority of respondents reported having an Anglo background themselves. Perhaps the disagreement with the statement reflects an ideal or perceived notion that all children have equal opportunities within school environments. This perception is at odds with that of several groups of parents with non-English speaking backgrounds who have participated in the location groups and in follow-up interviews. Indeed, these groups suggest that there are often high expectations from all concerned that families will adapt to school, sometimes resulting in a considerable struggle for children and families of non-Anglo background. In particular, this struggle is emphasised when children and families have limited proficiency in English (Howard, Dockett & Perry, 1999), or are Aboriginal (for example, Malin, 1994).

There were strong levels of disagreement from all groups with the statement that real school does not begin until year 1. Perhaps understandably the group most strongly disagreeing with this statement was the school teacher group. In some discussions within the location groups, teachers of Kindergarten report an undervaluing of their work by other teachers in schools, seemingly based on the assumption that the younger the children involved are, the less teaching expertise required and the less material actually taught. Responses to this statement clearly refute such assumptions. Importantly, the view that real school begins in Year 1 is also strongly rejected by parents and by teacher in prior-to-school settings.

CONCLUSION

What do these statements and responses indicate about beliefs and expectations as children start school? Including the 20 statements in the Starting School questionnaire provided the opportunity to test out support for these, and to compare levels of support from different groups. Overall, there was a striking level of agreement among parents and teachers in schools and prior-to-school settings about the issues raised in these statements. While several significant differences are reported, these represent differences in the degree of disagreement or agreement, rather than differences per se.

However, there is also some inconsistency in the response levels to several of the sets of statements, for example those relating to age. The statements and responses have raised several issues worthy of further research and discussion, including:

• How do adults perceive children's readiness for school? Is readiness a characteristic of individuals, or of contexts as well as the people within these?
• What exactly is expected of children when they start school, and how realistic is this?
• What role do adults see themselves as playing in helping children become prepared for school?
• If gender seems to be relatively unimportant, why does it occupy so much discussion time among parents and teachers?
• If age is not regarded as a good predictor of school success, why do adults seem to still prefer to have children starting school at older, rather than younger ages?
• What are the other factors, apart from age and gender, that impact on decisions about whether or not children should start school?
• How do schools, and the people within them, respond to the differences among children?
• What sense of professional trust exists, or should exist, between parents, teachers in prior-to-school settings and teachers in schools?
• How can all those involved in children's transition to school work in ways which support the children concerned?

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The research on which this paper is based was made possible through funding from the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur, the NSW Department of Education and Training, the NSW Department of Community Services and the Australian Research Council. These financial contributions are gratefully acknowledged by the authors, as is the assistance of all members of the project Advisory Committee and the Starting School Research Project team. The opinions expressed in the paper are those of the authors.