Date of Award

2010

Thesis Type

PhD

Document Type

Thesis

Divisions

Faculty of Education

Department

Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

Preschool aged Children with Special Needs (CSN) in Malaysia have been receiving instruction in classrooms for the past two decades. Various government and non-government organisations as well as private individuals have been providing this instruction. The latest to join this list of service providers is the Ministry of Education. The ministry has been actively involved in this exercise, recruiting teachers, opening new preschools, equipping them with teaching material, and organising courses as well as seminars on classroom instruction for the teachers. Information and materials used during these courses and seminars are based on the research carried out in developed countries which promote the use of recommended practices in classroom instruction for maximum effect. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the three stages of classroom instruction: assessment, planning and implementation were carried out and how recommended practices were incorporated into these stages. This research was carried out using the qualitative case study methodology. Three preschools, using the programme designed by the Ministry of Education, were selected. Observation, interviews and document analyses were used to collect data. NVivo 7, a computer software programme was used to manage the interview transcripts, the expanded observation notes and summaries of the document analyses. The same programme was used to code data and form categories within the case analyses, to derive individual reports of how classroom instruction took place in these three preschool classrooms. Constant comparative technique was used for the cross-case analysis, to discover the similarities and differences in the classroom instruction. The individual case reports and the cross-case analyses are described. This study brought forth pertinent findings that relate to instruction provided for preschool CSN in the classroom. The three teachers used recommended practices during instruction in the classrooms but, the use of recommended practices was not constant, consistent nor followed through in the three preschools. The study also discovered that the instruction did not hold to the core principle of providing classroom instruction, that is, to meet the individual needs of the students. The teachers lamented that constraints of time and number of students prevented them from catering to the individual needs of the students. This relates to two main findings closely related to two recommended practices that have to be addressed. First, non conformance to the established sequence of instructional stages; and second the absence of the important document, the IEP. The recommended practice to begin designing classroom instruction for preschoolers with special needs is to first, ‘assess the student’, then ‘plan the lesson for the student’ and ‘implement the lesson for that student’. The study found that often the sequence for designing the instruction was ‘plan’, ‘implement’ and ‘assess’. Where the Individualised Education Plan (IEP) was key in the recommended practice, there was only one lesson plan for the whole class, which had children of diverse abilities. However, teaching materials, especially worksheets were prepared to cater to the students of varying abilities. The study concluded that individualised instruction could be ensured through a rearrangement in the classroom instruction hierarchy to an “assessment-planningimplementation” structure, whereby an Individualised Education Plan is prepared for each student, before designing activities that incorporate the Learning Outcomes, for their individual learning needs.

Initial

khm

Additional Information

Thesis (PhD) – Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya, 2010.

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