ResearchOnline@JCU This file is part of the following work: Chong, Thomas (2017) Mind the gap: a case study on the influence of parental involvement and infocomm technologies on the literacy level of Singapore's Malay pre-schoolers. PhD thesis, James Cook University. Access to this file is available from: https://doi.org/10.4225/28/5ac6de7bbe8aa Copyright © 2017 Thomas Chong. The author has certified to JCU that they have made a reasonable effort to gain permission and acknowledge the owner of any third party copyright material included in this document. If you believe that this is not the case, please email [email protected] Mind the Gap: A Case Study on the Influence of Parental Involvement and Infocomm Technologies on the Literacy Level of Singapore’s Malay Pre-Schoolers A thesis submitted by Thomas CHONG for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the College of Arts, Society & Education James Cook University, Australia. 26th October 2017 Mind the Gap: A Case Study on the Influence of Parental Involvement and Infocomm Technologies on the Literacy Level of Singapore’s Malay Pre-Schoolers A thesis submitted by Thomas CHONG for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the College of Arts, Society & Education James Cook University, Australia. ______________________ ______________________ Professor Dr Neil Anderson Dr Robyn Anderson Primary Supervisor Secondary Supervisor ______________________ ______________________ Professor Dr Sue McGinty Dr Dale Anderson Associate Supervisor Associate Supervisor MIND THE GAP STATEMENT OF ACCESS I, the undersigned, author of this work, understand that James Cook University will make this thesis available for use within the University Library and, via the Australian Digital Theses network, for use elsewhere. I understand that, as an unpublished work, a thesis has significant protection under the Copyright Act and; I do not wish to place any further restriction on access to this work. 26th October 2017 Signature Date i MIND THE GAP ELECTRONIC COPY I, the undersigned, the author of this work, declare that the electronic copy of this thesis provided to the James Cook University Library is an accurate copy of the print thesis submitted, within the limits of the technology available. 26th October 2017 Signature Date ii MIND THE GAP THE CONTRIBUTION OF OTHERS Financial support in the form of internal sponsorship of International Tuition Fees under Tuition Fee Internal Sponsorship Policy of James Cook University was received with deep appreciation. iii MIND THE GAP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I want to acknowledge my A-team of supervisors. To my primary supervisor, Professor Dr Neil Anderson, thank you for your guidance and encouragement. Your expert advice and encouraging emails from across the oceans were always timely and sufficient. To my secondary supervisor, Dr Robyn Anderson, thank you for being right here in Singapore within easy reach. I am also particularly grateful to my associate supervisor Professor Dr Sue McGinty who is always generous with her time and comments – you actually combed through the entire 96,000-word thesis within 2 weeks! To my associate supervisor Dr Dale Anderson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and CEO of JCU Singapore, I am deeply grateful for your strategic role in getting me to pursue the PhD degree, on full tuition scholarship – you are such a blessing! I am also grateful to Dr Abe Jacob for his guidance on APA formatting for Chapter 1, and Dolly for much-needed admin support and friendship. Second, I want to thank one of my mentors, retired Senior Parliamentary Secretary (Education and Manpower) and now Special Envoy to Ghana and Palestine, His Excellency Mr Hawazi Daipi for his encouragement and access to the preschools under his charge. Thank you for being one of my role models! Third, I wish to thank my teenage children (Daniel, Edna and Phoebe) and my spouse Silvia for believing in me. Fourth, I thank my grassroots friends as well as church buddies who were quick to congratulate me for completing the Pre-Completion seminar and this PhD thesis. I am so appreciative of each of you. Fifth, I register my appreciation to ‘angels’ who nurtured me along my life journey whilst in the USA, namely Dr Jon Quistgaard, Dr James Rafferty, Dr Charles Alberti, Dr Gerald Skoog, Dr Ann Austad, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who sponsored my professional executive development in the USA. They were also significant others like Les and Libby Cohen in Seattle, Dr Tina Weiner at Yale, Dr Tony Wagner and Dr Catherine Snow at Harvard, Dr Joseph Renzulli at iv MIND THE GAP the University of Connecticut, Don Wells at Duke University – all of who helped me to “sharpen my saw”, as it were, during my professional executive development programmes in the USA. Sixth, I thank my siblings – Mordy, Jimmy, Jansci, Janet, David and Eddy - for the wonderful Peranakan (Malay-cum-Chinese) cuisine and growing-up years together. I also wish to register my thanks to the first two bosses in my professional work, Datuk Robert Chua and entrepreneur extraordinaire Mr Ricky Tan who trusted me to run their first niche preschool in 1994 in Malaysia where I applied my fluency in Bahasa (Malay language) to maximum advantage. Finally, I thank retired parliamentarian Dr S Vasoo, former Chief of Artillery Dr Michael Lim Teck Huat, Peranakan church elder Mr Chan Wah Liap, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Professor Dr Yahaya Ibrahim, Dato’ R. Rajendran, Les & Libby Cohen, and the late Dr Benjamin Chew who through their own life examples, motivated me to press on, to fight the good fight and finish the race. This dissertation is dedicated to the loving memory of three special women namely my late maternal grandmother Madam Wee Kim Hay who is the youngest aunt of the late philanthropist Lim Chong Pang, my late mother Madam Lim Joo Bee and my very dear friend Mrs Eileen Hoo whom I address as Auntie Eileen – all of whom inspired me to stand tall, to persevere and to delightfully serve others. v MIND THE GAP ABSTRACT There is a (literacy) gap among Malay pre-schoolers – they are not reading at their age level – and more can be done to help affected families so that their preschool children may recognise words, spell, read and make sense of simple sentences. This case study focused on the influence of parental involvement and Information Communication Technology (ICT) on the literacy level of Singapore’s Malay pre-schoolers. It started with a discussion on Singapore’s state of ICT- readiness, the choice of preschool, access and potential bias, assumptions, delimitations of this study and a review of the literature before discussing the findings and conclusion. This case study comprised a survey, a documentary analysis, and an analysis of narratives of Malay parents. The Malays are an aboriginal group commonly found in this part of South-east Asia comprising Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore. In fact, the provision of assistance to the Malays is enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore. The case study site is a group of 3 Singapore preschools under the People’s Action Party Community Foundation, a large charity. The case study site is representative of preschools serving low-income families. Thirty-one teachers and 48 parents or care-givers of children from these participating pre-schools participated in interviews. Through this case study method, the issues are better understood. Hence, recommendations are made to enhance literacy levels of pre-schoolers among the Malays, who are over-represented among the poor and the under-performers in school. There is also a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the case study design. The subject of triangulation was also discussed and especially related issues such as validity and reliability. Triangulation involved the analyses of qualitative data as well as quantitative data. Triangulation involved a documentary analysis relating to vi MIND THE GAP parliamentary speeches and media releases from various government bodies, a narrative analysis of interviews with teachers and parents, and a survey questionnaire (quantitative data) completed voluntarily by teachers and parents. The documentary analysis centred on parliamentary speeches on pre-school policies and media releases from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, Ministry of Social and Family Development, and other different data sources such as journal articles and books. The narrative analysis focused on interviews with teachers and parents. The survey questionnaire for teachers was designed to gather information about the level of ICT-readiness among them while the survey questionnaire for parents was designed to gather information about their nature and level of parental involvement with their preschool children. Broadly speaking, case studies are complex because they generally involved multiple sources of data and consequentially tended to produce large amounts of data for analysis. Nevertheless, with a more in-depth understanding of key questions such as ‘why’ and ‘how’, the critical success factors were identified. As was expected, a pattern emerged and several repeated themes surfaced from the narrative analysis. It was also interesting that a pair of somewhat unexpected factors emerged namely ‘religious upbringing’ and ‘religiosity’ which were then discussed in the context of how they helped or hindered the literacy development of the Malay pre-school children. This study also served to illustrate how the case study research method could be used to answer the “why” and "how" research questions. This study concluded that ICT can enhance teaching and learning, if integrated and harnessed appropriately to bring about engaged learning in the preschool environment. It also concluded that more parental involvement in a child’s literacy development might not lead to desired results if the parents vii MIND THE GAP were still struggling with bread-and-butter issues or if they were not well-equipped with parenting skills.