Master's Theses

Department

Social Work

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Abstract

The researcher investigated the effectiveness of a grant funded at-risk prekindergarten program for 3-, 4-, and 5- year-olds, who through pre screening were determined to be deficient in two or more skill areas . A total of 57 subjects, 26 girls and 31 boys, were involved in the 3 year study. The design was pretest, intervention, posttest for this ex post fact study. The screening instrument used for the pretest and post test was the Chicago Early Assessment and Remediation Laboratory (EARLY). The skill areas assessed were gross motor, fine motor, language, visual discrimination, and memory. The four independent variables were gender, deficiency, program year, and number of years in the program. The five dependent variables were the subject’s raw score on each of the five skill area subscales of the Chicago EARLY. Five hypotheses were tested at the .05 level. In the first hypothesis pretest mean scores and post test mean scores were compared using a t test for repeated measures. Of the 20 comparisons made 19 were significant. The remaining four hypotheses were tested using a one way analysis of covariance. Each of the four ANCOVAS involved comparing the adjusted post mean Chicago EARLY scores (pretest covariate measure) with boys and girls, the 3 program years, subjects participating 1 year and 2 years, and with students screened as non-deficient and deficient. A total of 50 comparisons were made of which 3 were significant. The results of the study indicated: 1. the education program appeared to improve subject’s performances in all areas tested except in the gross motor skill area for the program year 1986-87. 2. The education program appeared to be equally effective for girls and boys except in the visual discrimination skill area for the combined program years and for the program year 1988-89. 3. The effectiveness of the language skills portion of the education program appeared to be improving each year. 4. The program was equally effective for those who participated one and two years. 5. The program was equally effective for those screened as deficient and non-deficient.

Keywords

Counseling

Advisor

Dr. Bill C. Daley

Date of Award

Summer 1990

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

Comments

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