Thursday Online Presentation Session 3 Learning Experiences, Student Learning & Learner Diversity

Session Chair: Thia Jasmina

12:55-13:20

69039 | Walking Side by Side: Towards a Parent-friendly Learning Approach

Nura Jahanpour, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom

This presentation explores the potential of early-education institutions in acting as hubs of learning for parent communities. Building on the notion of parents spearheading the family, the presentation investigates parent experiences and insights in dialogue with functional outreach models in order to inform the creation of ‘parent-friendly’ learning.

The family is the nation in miniature, yet low engagement and high attrition rates of parent education programs suggest we urgently need to better understand the parent demographic to know how best to support their learning and to do that we need creative methods with which to reach them. This presentation offers insights into parent experiences and presents opportunities for institution-led approaches.

Drawing on findings from a qualitative study incorporating in-depth interviews with arts-based creative methods of parents (n=20) across the two contexts of Denmark and Slovakia, offering insights into the parent perspective on their learning, suggesting critical parenting value influences and mapping typologies. These findings are presented in dialogue with the creative walking methodology utilised as a functional research model. Ultimately, offering insights into the construction of parenting values and exploring the nature of the influences of the preschool ecosystem on parenting.

These findings contribute towards governments and institutions better understanding the parent needs and thus inform educational policy. By better understanding the needs of parents when approaching parenting knowledge acquisition and by exploring these in dialogue with functional research models, we can remove the barriers to access for diverse parent communities and re-envision parent community learning.

13:20-13:45

67801 | Needs of Omani Children in Kg2 During Their Transition to Primary School

Zainab AL-Gharibi, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Julie McAdam, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

Cathy Fagan, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how Omani children in Kg2 experience their needs in their transition to 1st grade. Theoretically, the paper was built on two perspectives; Dewey's concept of continuity of experience and the boundary objects introduced by Vygotsky (1978) (CHAT). The methodology of the study is based on the crucial role of children’s agency which is a very important activity as an educational tool to enhance the child’s participation in the learning process and develop their ability to face various issues in their life. Thus, the data was obtained from the KG2 children by drawing and visual narrative activities. As the study dealt with children, all the necessary ethical laws were followed. The analysis was according to the social semiotics approach in two phases. The first is “denotation” which is the surface message. The second phase is “signified”, which is the deepest symbolism obtained from observations of the children while they were drew and talked, the letters and signs they drew, and the video recorded for each child to talk about their drawing and express theirself. Then, the data was organised and classifed according to a cross-data network method indrduced by Deguara (2019). The study came up with a set of findings, the most vital being that the children's greatest interest goes to their social and psychological needs such as: friends, their teacher, and playing. While they showed less concern for their need for educational knowledge and skills.

13:45-14:10

69074 | How the Quality of Vocational Secondary Schools Affect Students’ Performance in Indonesia?

Thia Jasmina, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

Faizal Rahmanto Moeis, Universitas Indonesia, Indonesia

In the last ten years, Indonesia has shifted the development of secondary schools from general secondary education to vocational secondary education. The latest presidential decree in 2022 strengthened the government's commitment to developing vocational secondary schools. The number of vocational schools and student participation has increased significantly. However, despite the increased student participation in vocational high schools and the government policy toward empowering vocational education, the graduates of vocational secondary schools are less employed than graduates of public secondary schools in the country. This study analyzes factors that affect the quality of graduates of vocational secondary in Indonesia. Applying a cross-sectional regression of around 12,000 public and private vocational secondary schools in Indonesia, the study shows that the national exams scores, both total and specific competency scores, of the students in vocational secondary schools, are positively affected by the share of vocational teachers in the school, and accreditation status of the schools. Moreover, students in the public vocational schools in the field of information and communication technology, and engineering, located in urban areas and the western part of Indonesia, have relatively higher average national exam scores. Several issues hindered the enhancement of vocational secondary schools in Indonesia, among others, are: sufficient number and competency of vocational teachers, adequate facilities to support practical teaching, and mismatch between students' competency and demand in the labor market.