News Archive 2011
30/09/11: PhD students at CEE launch new research initiative 'Learn-a-Long'
11/08/11: CEE report on pupils’ emotional health and wellbeing now available
20/04/11: Evaluation report of Letterbox Club launched
07/02/11: Additional PhD Studentship on Improving Educational Outcomes for Looked After Children
03/02/11: Media coverage of CEE Sesame Tree research
26/01/11: Evaluation Report of Time to Read Launched
24/01/11: Fieldwork for UNICEF project in Krygyzstan begins
An additional full-time PhD studentship is available to work on a randomised controlled trial evaluation of the Letterbox Club in Northern Ireland. The Letterbox Club seeks to improve educational outcomes among primary school children in state care. It does this by sending children individualised packs of books once per month for six months. Further information on the Letterbox Club can be found at: http://www.letterboxclub.org.uk/
A previous report on the Letterbox Club conducted by the Centre for Effective Education can be downloaded from the Publications section of this website. This current studentship arises from one of the key recommendations from that report: to conduct a full randomised controlled trial evaluation of the programme. This studentship will be jointly supervised by Professor Paul Connolly (Education) and Dr Karen Winter (Social Work) and will be conducted in partnership with the Fostering Network Northern Ireland. The studentship will involve a mixed-method evaluation of the Letterbox Club as delivered to children in Northern Ireland that will include a randomised trial and qualitative process evaluation.
For more information on this studentship please contact Dr Winter at: 028 9097 3917 or via email at: k.winter@qub.ac.uk
Details on how to apply for this studentship can be found on the School of Education main website. Deadline for the submission of applications is 28 February 2012.
Applications are invited for full-time PhD studentships (DEL Awards) to be located within the Centre for Effective Education. Studentships will be for three years and will commence in October 2012. Each studentship will cover university fees and will provide an annual maintenance grant. The deadline for submission of applications is 14 February 2012. The Centre currently has five full-time PhD students and provides a rich and vibrant research culture that places a strong emphasis on supporting the development of doctoral research. Click here for more information on the studentships.
A new research initiative that involves the design, delivery and rigorous evaluation of a suite of volunteer tutoring programmes has been launched by PhD students at the Centre for Effective Education.
The initiative, "Learn-a-Long", involves university students volunteering two hours of their time to work on a one-to-one basis with young children (aged 4-8) from primary schools across Northern Ireland who are struggling to achieve academically. The initiative currently includes three programmes that focus on boosting early skills in reading, maths and language (for those whose first language is not English) respectively. The three programmes are being devised by PhD students Pauline Connolly, Nicole Craig and Naoimh Fox respectively. Volunteer students are currently being recruited to deliver the three programmes in the Spring term 2012. A huge incentive for students is the fact that participating in the Learn-a-Long programme is accredited of the award of Degree Plus (Route A).
Speaking of the initiative, CEE Director Professor Paul Connolly said: "we are delighted to be launching this major new research initiative. This is a truly innovative programme that: provides an important service for local schools and young children; gives hundreds of our students the opportunity to gain invaluable volunteering experience that is also accredited; and also enables our PhD students to conduct doctoral research that is cutting edge. It is a truly win-win situation for everyone."
Over the coming years, the Centre aims to recruit more PhD students to add more tutoring programmes to the initiative. With a commitment to providing full details of each programme along with the findings of the evaluations of their effectiveness, the Learn-a-Long initiative aims to make an important contribution to the evidence base of effective educational programmes in Northern Ireland.
For more information please visit the website: http://learn-a-long.info
A new report, prepared for the Department of Education in Northern Ireland, is now available to download from the CEE website. The report was commissioned by the Department to inform a ‘Programme to Promote Pupils’ Emotional Health and Wellbeing’ in post-primary schools.
Prepared by an inter-disciplinary research team, led by Professor Paul Connolly and involving colleagues from education and social work, the report presents the findings of an independent review of current practice in relation to promoting pupils’ emotional health and wellbeing in post-primary schools in Northern Ireland and a review of existing audit tools that schools can use to self-evaluate their whole-school practice in relation to this area. Based upon these findings, the report makes a series of recommendations in relation to future policy and practice regarding the promotion of pupils’ emotional health and wellbeing across the post-primary school sector in Northern Ireland.
The report will now be considered by the Project Board and its five Working Groups that were established in 2007 to take the Programme to Promote Pupils’ Emotional Health and Wellbeing forward.The Programme has been prioritized for action at Ministerial level in Northern Ireland and its main aim is to act as the ‘glue’ integrating the services that have an impact on pupils’ emotional health and wellbeing. While the Project Board has an initial focus on the post-primary education sector and the following research is set in that context. It is hoped, however, that the resulting Programme will be adaptable for other tiers of education.
For more information on the Pupils’ Emotional Health and Wellbeing Programme click here. The full report can be downloaded from the Publications page of this website. For more information on the report please contact Professor Paul Connolly.
Children in foster care in Northern Ireland have seen their reading, comprehension and numeracy skills improved while taking part in a scheme providing them with books and other materials, an independent evaluation by the Centre for Effective Education has found.
The Letterbox Club Northern Ireland, delivered by leading charities the Fostering Network and Booktrust, sends personalised parcels of books, stationery and maths games once a month to children in foster care aged 7 to 11 years, to try to help them improve their educational outcomes.
The report of the evaluation undertaken by the Centre for Effective Education focused on data gathered on children who took part in the scheme in 2009 and 2010. Among the findings were:
- The 268 fostered children in the study made an average gain of 3.6 points on their standardised reading accuracy scores and 3.5 points on their standardised reading comprehension scores.
- Just over a third of the children increased a key stage level in relation to completing number problems and fluency with mental arithmetic.
These results are to be launched at an event at Stranmillis University College, Belfast on Wednesday 20 April. Sir Robert Salisbury, chair of the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy in Northern Ireland, will be responding to the report at the launch.
The research team includes academics from Social Work and Education at Queen’s and from Stranmillis University College. Commenting on the results, Dr Karen Winter who led the research team said: “these results are encouraging, especially given the fact that these improvements have taken place over the summer months – a time when children tend to fall back a little in their academic work due to the summer holidays. However, we do need to be cautious in interpreting these results as the data we had available didn’t allow us to determine how much of this progress was specifically due to the effects of the Letterbox Club. As such one of our recommendations is that a rigorous research trial now be commissioned to work this out.”
Author Malachy Doyle, who is Letterbox Northern Ireland’s patron, said: “I have seen this project go from strength to strength, I’ve seen the delight on the faces of the children, opening their colourful packages, posted to them individually. I’ve seen them play the games with friends and carers, listen to the books, read the books, and talk with great enthusiasm about the joy of being a member of the Letterbox Club.”?
Kate Lewis, Director of the Fostering Network Northern Ireland, said: “Looked-after children have traditionally struggled to match their peers in terms of academic achievement. What this evaluation shows to me is that simple actions can make a real difference – access to the fun and inspiring educational materials that Letterbox sends is helping young fostered children to meet their potential at a key stage in their development.”
Copies of the executive summary and full report can be downloaded as PDFs from the Publications section of this website.
For further information on the research please contact Dr Karen Winter on (028) 9097 3917 or at: k.winter@qub.ac.uk
Characters from Sesame Tree (copyright: Sesame Workshop)
The recent evaluations of the effectiveness of the children’s television series, Sesame Tree, have attracted a lot of interest from the national media. The research, conducted by the Centre for Effective Education on behalf of Sesame Workshop in New York, was featured in the Sunday Times magazine in December 2010 and has now attracted the interest of the national magazine Nursery World.
The evaluation of the first series of Sesame Tree – Northern Ireland’s version of Sesame Street – has involved two cluster randomized trials and also a naturalistic longitudinal study. The three studies, together, involved 90 primary schools and over 1,5000 children. The core research team that evaluated the first series included Professor Paul Connolly, Dr Susan Kehoe and Dr Emma Larkin. Along with Dr Glenda Walsh from Stranmillis University College, the team has also undertaken the formative research for the first and second series.
Speaking of the recent media coverage, CEE Director Professor Connolly said: “we are naturally delighted with the impact that our research is having. The media coverage is testament to the quality and rigour of our work and the wider interest both nationally and internationally in robust evaluations of the effectiveness of educational initiatives.”
To view the Sunday Times coverage click on the following link: http://bit.ly/hP3doc (6.2MB download)
To view the coverage in Nursery Work, click on the following link: http://bit.ly/eAZze3
For more information on the research please contact Dr Emma Larkin. The evaluation reports will be available to download shortly from the Publications page of the Centre’s website.
Dr Angela Eakin pictured with fieldworkers following a training session held in Bishkek, Krygyzstan
Fieldwork on a national survey that the Centre for Effective Education (CEE) has been commissioned to undertake in Krygyzstan on behalf of UNICEF has now begun. The survey seeks to provide high quality baseline evidence of how the country’s only national children’s television series – Magic Journey – is watched by preschool children and their parents. The survey will also seek the children’s and parents views on the series.
The survey is being led by the CEE’s Dr Angela Eakin who has just returned from a week’s visit to Krygyzstan where she has been providing indepth training and support to a team of local fieldworkers. The survey will consist of one-to-one interviews with over 800 parents and their 5-6 year old children randomly selected from across the country.
Professor Paul Connolly, Director of the CEE said: “this is a very exciting project that will make an important contribution to the further development and refinement of the highly popular television series Magic Journey. We are delighted to be working with UNICEF on this venture in Krygyzstan. This work is testament to our growing international reputation for research on early childhood programmes, including those involving television.”
“This research builds upon the highly successful formative and summative research we have completed for Sesame Workshop, New York, in relation to the development of Sesame Tree. It also follows the publication of the findings of the largest ever randomized trial of the effectiveness of a preschool programme aimed at promoting respect for diversity – the Media Initiative for Children – that involved research with over 1,000 3-4 year olds here in Northern Ireland.”
For more information on the UNICEF project please contact Dr Angela Eakin.
