Abstracts - Earli

L431 August 2007 11:00 - 12:20Room: PP4Poster SessionPoster sessionChair:Eleftheria N. Gonida, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, GreeceObservation of parent-child interaction in kindergarten as a tool for child assessmentAmos Fleischmann, Achva Coll. of Education, IsraelAlicia Davidovsky, Derby University, IsraelUtilization of a quantitative observation in the kindergarten: assessment of the interaction betweenstudents and their parents and the effect of an early intervention. Parental involvement is of utmostimportance to the functioning of children in kindergarten. The present study tested the possibilitythat observation of parent-child interaction during the time the parent brought the child to thekindergarten could be used as an assessment tool to learn about the child. . The current study wasconducted in three kindergartens that were characterized by the diversity of their populations. Tworesearch tools were developed: a Likert-type questionnaire for the assessment and diagnosis of theparents’ behavior towards the child and the child’s scholastic achievement; and an observationformat for the assessment and diagnosis of the parent, the child and the parent-child interactionupon arriving at the kindergarten. A significant correlation was found in the Pearson coefficient(0.69) between the total number of quantitative observations and the total number ofquestionnaires to the kindergarten teachers, between the different parts of the questionnaire and thedifferent parts of the observation. The averages of the observations and questionnaires of groups ofchildren and parents whose children had undergone educational and psychological interventionwere higher than those of the groups of children and parents who had not undergone suchintervention One of the major challenges to the educational system is the narrowing of the gap inscholastic achievement of children from different socio-economic levels. Children who werediagnosed and given educational and psychological intervention that included the children andtheir parents showed a higher level of achievement. It seems that an extremely short quantitativeobservation in which the parent-child interaction is assessed can be used as an additional tool inthe possession of kindergarten teachers to diagnose children.Learning And Study Strategies Inventory : a preliminary study of italian validationMaria D’Alessio, University of Rome La Sapienza, ItalyCarlo Di Chiacchio, University of Rome La Sapienza, ItalyLearning And Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI), college version (Weinstein, Schulte, Palmer,1987, 2002) is a test measuring ten dimensions regarding cognition, motivation and emotionduring study activities. Starting from the end of 80s, numerous studies have confirmed its validityboth on psychometric and applicative ground (e.g. Olaussen & Bråten, 1998; Albaili, 1997;Hewlett, Boonstra, Bell, Zumbo, 2000). In Italy there are not many standardised instrumentsevaluating learning strategies in university population and, most of them, are within long batteriesmeasuring several constructs. Therefore, the aim of this study was to give a preliminarycontribution to the Italian validation of LASSI. Research objectives were to analyse thepsychometric properties of the scales, to explore factor structure,to determine the discriminativepower of the test comparing groups of students with different achievement.The main results– 658 –