Dr. Catherine Capio, Prof. Kevin Chung, and Dr. Amanda Wong in the Department of Early Childhood Education (ECE) have each been awarded a GRF grant this year. Their researches cover a wide range of topics as detailed below.
Dr. Capio will assess an evidence-informed and co-designed fundamental movement skills training programme by measuring young children’s cognitive and psychosocial outcomes in kindergartens. The findings will inform the design and implementation of kindergarten programmes that enable cognitive and social development through movement-based programmes. These will enable kindergarten teachers to help young children to develop the ability and the confidence to move and engage with their physical and social environments.
Prof. Chung will examine the relationships among environmental factors, cognitive and language skills in Chinese children at family risk of dyslexia (FRD) from kindergarten K1 to K3 in order to determine the distinctive contribution of risk factors and skills to literacy development across different subgroups of children at FRD. The outcomes will provide much-needed local data and information to offer an understanding of the characteristics of children at FRD and how they can be identified early and provided with necessary literacy interventions.
Dr. Wong will first investigate the efficacy of an intervention programme, the ECE Peace Ambassador Project (ECE-PAP), in reducing bullying in children aged 5 to 6; and second refine the intervention programme based on the findings of the study. The results will make new theoretical contributions on anti-bullying programmes by testing the effects of emotional intelligence (EI) and coping strategies on young children’s ability to deal with bullying, and to prevent or stop bullying among peers during the early years.
Altogether, ECE plays a pivotal role in transforming research into practices in the field.