The performance of a group of Mangaung children in the Gesell preschool test

[摘要] The high failure rate in the first school years, created a need for earlyintervention and led to a search for school-readiness tests that will detect schoolproblems. No tests have been designed to evaluate school-readiness amongblack preschoolers, who grew up in cultural settings that differ from that withinwhich the group of children for whom existing tests have been standardized,reside. Although various tests from overseas are locally implemented, most ofthem are not suitable for the blacks whilst others are still being standardized forsuch use. Gesell's Developmental Test for School-readiness seems suitable foruse with the Sotho and Tswana culture groups in that it focuses on the totality ofhuman development and maturation and is based on four developmentalcomponents, namely motor, adaptive, language and personal-social behaviour.Gesell's test has been used in America at the beginning of the century and thenorms have been established in America. In order to establish the suitability ofthis test for South African conditions, the theoretical background of variousdevelopmental theories was looked into, Gesell's developmental perspective wasmore extensively explained, and general school-readiness criteria wereidentified. The effect of differences between cultures and the implications thisholds for cross-cultural research, were taken into consideration, with the aim offurthering culture fairness in the testing of children. Following this, a study wasconducted with the aim of assessing the developmental milestones of Mangaung preschoolers by means of the Gesell Preschool Test, and comparing the data ofboys and girls, as well as of the five and six year age groups, with that of the USAnormative group.The subject sample of 48 boys and 52 girls (N = 100) was drawn randomly fromthree preschools in Mangaung. Children were tested, by means of the GesellTest, at their respective preschools and the test languages were South Sotho andTswana.An ex post facto design was used to compare the data of boys and girls, and ofthe Mangaung, versus the New Haven, USA norm groups. The X2-test, forestablishing the homogeneity of two independent samples, was used. Thediscrete categories were used to determine the significance of differencesbetween the two independent groups. The comparison of Mangaung boys andgirls yielded no significant differences. The data of the Mangaung preschoolerswas subsequently compared with that of the USA normative group. In this case,significant differences arose mainly from subtests incorporating language, suchas Picture Vocabulary and Action Agent where cultural variance for both thefive and six year old groups were indicated. Apart from the problemsmentioned, the study has confirmed that the Gesell test with it's 13 subtests canbe considered to be culture-fair in the local situation.These results indicate that the Gesell Developmental Test, with follow-upstudies and more data, can be considered for application among members of theblack population group as a measure of school-readiness in preschool children.

[发布机构] University of the Free State