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On-entry assessment of school competencies and academic achievement: a comparison between Slovenia and Germany

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Abstract

The foundation of school success is laid early in children’s lives. Consequently, assessments of academic precursors may help to identify children in need of additional support. Such early assessments could also be interesting from an international perspective when educational systems are compared. This analysis is used to inform on the comparability of Slovenian and German versions of the English on-school-entry assessment tool “Performance Indicators in Primary School” (PIPS; Tymms and Albone 2002). PIPS was also used to predict later academic achievement in the two national samples. The German sample consisted of 468 children with a mean age of about 6;6 years at school entry (48.7 % girls). In Slovenia, 328 children (49 % girls) were assessed (mean age of about 6;3 years at school entry). Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses for PIPS did not support weak measurement invariance. However, results indicated that the number of factors as well as the pattern of loadings seems to be comparable. Further research is needed to examine in which respects PIPS might work as a tool for international comparisons. Structural equation modelling indicated that PIPS can be used as a predictor of academic achievement and that overall academic achievement could be predicted best by early numeracy. PIPS measures of literacy and numeracy skills were specific and significant predictors of children’s later language and math achievement in grade 1.

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Notes

  1. Because children were nested within schools (39 and 28 schools in the Slovene and German sample, respectively), multilevel models were employed in preliminary analyses to examine design effects (computed based on intra-class correlation: 1 + (mean cluster size—1) ICC, Snijders and Bosker 1999) for PIPS indicators. The great majority of variables demonstrated design effects smaller than 2 indicating a low effect of school clustering (Muthén 1999). Consequently, multi-level models were not employed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Research Institute, Gerbičeva 62, 1000, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Maša Vidmar

  2. University of Würzburg, Röntgenring 10, 97070, Würzburg, Germany

    Frank Niklas & Wolfgang Schneider

  3. German Institute for International Educational Research, Schloßstr. 29, 60486, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Marcus Hasselhorn

Authors
  1. Maša Vidmar
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  2. Frank Niklas
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  3. Wolfgang Schneider
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  4. Marcus Hasselhorn
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Correspondence to Maša Vidmar.

Additional information

Maša Vidmar is a developmental psychologist involved in educational research. She works as the researcher at the Educational Research Institute in Slovenia. Her research interests are links between academic achievement and the social-emotional domain and other precursors of academic achievement (including children’s early literacy and numeracy, effortful control). She is also involved in international comparative studies of students’ achievements.

Email: masa.vidmar@pei.si.

Current themes of research:

Teacher’s social and emotional competence, early school leaving, impact of early childhood education and care on child/adolescent development (social competence and behaviour problems)

Most relevant recent publications of Maša Vidmar in the field of Psychology of Education:

Vidmar, M. (2015). Contextualising ECEC research: the case of Slovenia. International Journal of Early Years Education, 23(3), 313–328.

Vidmar, M. (2013). Napoved učne uspešnosti romskih učencev [The prediction of academic success of Roma pupils]. In: T. Vonta & J. Jager (eds.), Uspešnost romskih učencev v slovenskih osnovnih šolah [Success of Roma pupils in Slovenian schools], p. 167–172. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.

Pucelj, V. & Vidmar, M. (2012). Trendi v odnosu do šole [Trends in attitudes toward school]. In: H. Jeriček Klanšček et al. (eds.), Spremembe v vedenjih, povezanih z zdravjem mladostnikov v Sloveniji v obdobju 2002–2010 [Trends in Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study in Slovenia in the period 2002–2010], p. 56–66. Ljubljana: Inštitut za varovanje zdravja.

Vidmar, M. (2012). PISA 2009: bralna pismenost pri slovenskih gimnazijcih [PISA 2009: Reading literacy in Slovene gimnazija students]. Šolsko polje [School Field], 23(3–4), 159–177.

Frank Niklas is a developmental and educational psychologist. He works as a post doc researcher at the University of Würzburg. His research interests concern how children learn in the context of families (Home Learning Environment). He is also interested in the development of mathematical and linguistic competencies during early childhood. Email: niklas@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de

Current themes of research:

Home learning environment, impact of early childhood education and care on child development (room composition and quality)

Most relevant recent publications of Frank Niklas in the field of Psychology of Education:

Hildenbrand, C., Niklas, F., Cohrssen, C. & Tayler, C. (in press). Children's mathematical and verbal competencies in different early education and care settings in Australia. Journal of Early Childhood Research. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1476718X15582096

Niklas, F. (2015). Die familiäre Lernumwelt und ihre Bedeutung für die kindliche Kompetenzentwicklung [The learning environment provided by the family and its impact on the development of child competencies]. Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht, 62, 106–120. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2378/peu2015.art11d

Niklas, F. & Schneider, W. (2015). With a little help: improving kindergarten children’s vocabulary by enhancing the home literacy environment. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 28(4), 491–508. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-014-9534-z

Niklas, F., Tayler, C., & Schneider, W. (2015). Home-based literacy activities and children's cognitive outcomes: A comparison between Australia and Germany. International Journal of Educational Research, 71, 75–85. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2015.04.001

Wolfgang Schneider is Professor of Developmental and Educational Psychology at the University of Würzburg and Fellow of the International Academy of Education. His research interests concern the development of memory and metacognition, precursors of reading and spelling, dyslexia and dyscalculia, as well as expertise and giftedness. Email: schneider@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de

Current themes of research:

Development of memory and metacognition

Most relevant recent publications of Wolfgang Schneider in the field of Psychology of Education:

Schneider, W. (2015). Memory development from early childhood through emerging adulthood. New York: Springer.

Schneider, W. & Berger, N. (2012). Why phonological awareness is causally important in the acquisition of reading and spelling. In S. Suggate & E. Reese (Eds.), Contemporary debates in early childhood (pp. 216– 226). London: Routledge.

Linden, N. von der, Schneider, W. & Roebers, C. (2011). The effects of summary production and encoding condition on children's metacognitive monitoring. Metacognition and Learning, 6, 3–23.

Schneider, W. & Artelt, C. (2010). Metacognition and mathematics education. ZDM International Journal of Mathematics Education, 42, 149–161.

Prof. Dr. Marcus Hasselhorn. German Institute for International Educational Research, Centre for Research on Education and Human Development and Centre for Research on Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (IDeA). Email: hasselhorn@dipf.de.

Current themes of research:

Learning disabilities, working memory, early education, individual preconditions of successful learning

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Brandenburg, J., Klesczewski, J., Fischbach, A., Schuchardt, K., Büttner, G., & Hasselhorn, M. (2014). Working memory in children with learning disabilities in reading versus spelling: searching for overlapping and specific cognitive factors. Journal of Learning Disabilities. Online first: doi: 10.1177/0022219414521665

Ehm, J.H., Lindberg, S., & Hasselhorn, M. (2014). Reading, writing, and math self-concept in elementary school children: influence of dimensional comparison processes. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 29, 277–294. doi: 10.1007/s10212-013-0198-x

Lehmann, M., & Hasselhorn, M. (2010). The dynamics of free recall and their relation to rehearsal between 8 and 10 years of age. Child Development, 81, 1006–1020. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01448.x

Preßler, A.-L., Könen, T., Hasselhorn, M., & Krajewski, K. (2014). Cognitive preconditions of early reading and spelling: a latent-variable approach with longitudinal data. Reading and Writing, 27, 383–406. doi: 10.1007/s11145-013-9449-0

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Vidmar, M., Niklas, F., Schneider, W. et al. On-entry assessment of school competencies and academic achievement: a comparison between Slovenia and Germany. Eur J Psychol Educ 32, 311–331 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-016-0294-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-016-0294-9

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