Junior kindergarten jitters
Data collection doesn't account for cultural differences, says expert
Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Monday, December 12, 2016
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
An early childhood expert and clinical psychologist says the data forming the base of the territory's junior kindergarten program is misused.
Dr. Jennifer Chalmers is a clinical psychologist with more than 20 years of early childhood work across the Northwest Territories.
She has been hired by the Western Arctic Aboriginal Head Start Council to review the Early Development Instrument (EDI) and the Sense of Identity questionnaire.
The territorial government is using data from both tools to guide decisions about early childhood investment. But Chalmers said in her opinion, the method used to gather the data, as well as the data itself, is flawed.
"Rating scales have been known to be extremely biased, especially when the teacher or the staff is not from the same cultural group as the child," she said. "And unfortunately, a lot of the Northern teachers are not from the North."
The EDI data is gathered through a questionnaire performed by the territory's kindergarten teachers.
Teachers rate each child on a scale that looks at five early development areas.
Chalmers said rating scales are an inaccurate way to gather meaningful data.
"It's a ratings scale, so it's not based on any actual work with the child, it's not been validated with the child, so its 100-per-cent subjective of the teacher's opinion," she said.
"I'm a clinical psychologist, what I do for a living is testing. We don't use a lot of rating scales."
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment hosted a media briefing on Dec. 5 in Yellowknife that outlined the department's plans to expand junior kindergarten into all communities with a school.
Information presented included a graph that outlined how children who participated in existing junior kindergarten programs compared to children who had not attended junior kindergarten or any other licensed based early childhood program.
The EDI data showed that children who participated in junior kindergarten performed better than those who had not.
The data was collected in the 19 communities currently offering junior kindergarten in February.
"What we want to do is make sure that we're tracking to see if, in fact, the four- year-old junior kindergarten can make a difference in lowering the EDI results when they reach five-year-old kindergarten," said Rita Mueller, assistant deputy minister of Education.
But Chalmers said EDI data doesn't accurately reflect junior kindergarten's impact.
Chalmers said the testing method is especially problematic in the NWT. For example, one of the questions in the EDI asks teachers to rate children on whether or not they are "shy."
Chalmers said that question is culturally loaded. While some cultures consider shyness and quietness to be negative traits, others believe they are positive.
"Especially in the far North, in the Beaufort Delta being shy is actually a good thing but in the EDI it's not," she said. "Being quiet is bad on the EDI."
