Browsing by Subject "havainnointilomake"

Goals. The aim of this thesis was to examine the relationship between the assessments made on the teacher rating scale and the results of the direct measures of language development when assessing 4-year-old children’s language skills. The second aim was to find out how well early educators identify 4-year-old children who are at risk and those not at risk for language skills when using the teacher rating scale. Previous research has shown that form-based assessment tools are considered practical and efficient ways to assess children’s early language skills. The accuracy and consistency of the assessments have not been thoroughly investigated. This thesis will provide information on whether early educators identify those children who are at greater risk for language problems than their peers. Early identification is important to targeting the right kind of support. Methods. This study is a quantitative Master’s thesis. The research data included the results of the Lene and the Lukiva tests and the assessments made on the teacher rating scale for 4-year-old children (N=189) obtained in the initial sample of the Toimi ja opi research in 2019. The relationship between the assessments made on the teacher rating scale and the results of direct measures of language development was examined using Spearman’s and Pearson’s correlation analyses. The ability of early educators to identify 4-year-old children who are at risk and those not at risk for language skills was examined through configural frequency analysis. IBM SPSS Statistics 27 and Excel were used for data analysis. Results and conclusions. The results of the Master’s thesis showed a moderate and statistically significant relationship between the assessments made on the teacher rating scale and the direct measures of language development. The strongest connection was measured between the teacher rating scale and the Lene’s language comprehension test. The results also showed that the early educators were able to identify those 4-years-old children who are at risk and those not at risk for language skills when using the teacher rating scale. The findings show that the teacher rating scale is a viable tool for early educators to assess children’s language skills and to identify those who are at risk for language problems.