N Kucirkova
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 57999 |
|---|---|
| NOME | N Kucirkova |
| PRENOMES | N |
| SOBRENOME | Kucirkova |
| ASSINATURA | KUCIRKOVA N |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Stavanger |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2805-1745 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 48 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 21 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 48 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2014 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
National Policies and Educational Technology in Six Countries
National policies significantly shape resource allocation and priorities in EdTech development. This paper presents insights from six countries through a systems thinking perspective. Drawing on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors explore how national policies evolved in response to global EdTech trends. Each country offers unique approaches as case studies. China emphasizes digital transformation and the use of artificial intelligenc…
Textures of reading
This article examines how narrative emotion and embodied experience take shape as textural atmospheres in olfactory multisensory story design. Drawing on two Norwegian digital picturebooks enhanced with four abstract scents, the analysis traces how smell organises the felt rhythm of reading, orientation, suspension, crisis, and closure, through shifts in affective texture rather than explicit description. Guided by critical sensory multimodal lit…
Evaluating educational technology
Procurement of educational technologies (EdTech) requires a research-based rubric with multiple quality indicators that reflect the technology’s impact across various settings. We outline the development of the Multiple EdTech Impact Index (MEII) and an impact benchmarking formula for EdTech tools designed for K12 education. MEII includes fifteen indicators of impact, categorized into three evidence weights (high, medium, low) across five domains…
Reading Without Words
In today’s diversified learning environments, children encounter an expanding range of multimodal texts that integrate image, sound, movement, and gesture. Such texts invite new forms of engagement and demand approaches that recognise the sensory as central to literacy learning. This article examines how ten wordless animated short films from the DIALLS project might communicate equity, inclusion, and ethical meaning through sensory and multimoda…
Centering Equity in the Science of Reading
The Science of Reading is a broad and evolving body of empirical research about reading processes, components, instruction, and assessment. Yet, the field of reading research is characterized by complexity and contention, encompassing diverse methodologies, emerging and shifting definitions, and questions regarding optimal approaches toward reading instruction. Adding to this complexity is the question of the extent to which reading science cente…
Which Interactive Features in Children’s Digital Picture Books Promote Reading Comprehension? A Meta-Analysis
This meta-analysis examined which interactive features incorporated into children’s digital picture books influence story comprehension. Through a systematic literature review, we identified 20 relevant articles comparing picture books with and without interactive features, encompassing a total of 1,978 children between the ages of 2 and 8 years. We coded the interactive features in the digital books, specifically focusing on mini-games, question…
Developing evidence indicators for evaluating K12 EdTech
Drawing upon a synthesis of literature and cross-sectoral consultations, we present the impact dimensions and three-level tiered indicators for developing a multidimensional approach to evaluating the evidence of impact of educational technology (EdTech). We build on the “5Es” impact framework — efficacy, effectiveness, ethics, equity, and environment — by operationalising it through fifteen impact indicators identified through an extensive liter…
The role of gender in multisensory reading
The study explores the effect of olfactory enhancements on children's engagement with digital books and examines potential gender differences in their responses. Grounded in multisensory learning and affordances, the study hypothesised that olfactory cues would enhance children’s engagement during shared reading. The sample consisted of 65 Norwegian-speaking children aged 4–5 from five different early childhood education and care centres (ECEC), …
Exploring the Multifaceted Roles of Social Robots in Early Childhood Literacy Lessons
This study investigates the roles of social robots (SRs) in literacy lessons with 25 children aged 5–6, including five with special educational needs, in a Maltese early childhood classroom. Through thematic analysis and grounding in Mead’s symbolic interactionism and Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, we explored how SRs mediate interactions and influence children’s self-concept development. The NAO6 humanoid robot, programmed to recognize student…
Representation in best-selling preschool storybook apps in the United States
In this study, we examine preschool storybook apps to identify the types of characters represented in these stories and how they relate to design quality and opportunities for children to build their vocabularies – a significant predictor of later success in learning to read. Specifically, we sought to understand (a) how storybook apps portray gender, race, and disability status; (b) how these characteristics compare in apps that contain the most…
Enhancing Reading Through Olfactory Stimuli
This conceptual paper argues that for children with reading difficulties, multi‐sensory approaches to learning, especially in literacy, are essential. Drawing on a state‐of‐the‐art review, we propose that olfactory elements of the learning environment, particularly in reading spaces, have significant implications for how struggling readers engage with texts. Supporting struggling readers may benefit from more intentional consideration of the emot…
Parents’ ontological beliefs regarding the use of conversational agents at home
This paper develops a critical perspective on the use of conversational agents (CAs) with children at home. Drawing on interviews with eleven parents of pre-school children living in Norway, we illustrate the ways in which parents resisted the values epitomised by CAs. We problematise CAs’ attributes in light of parents’ ontological perceptions of what it means to be human and outline how their attitudes correspond to Bourdieu’s [1998a. Acts of R…
The explanatory power of sensory reading for early childhood research
Sensory reading refers to reading that engages all six of the human senses – vison, hearing, touch, gustation, olfaction and proprioception. The author proposes that increased attention be paid to the three ‘hidden’ senses of gustation, olfaction and proprioception to advance innovative reading studies. She articulates the problematic of visually dominated multimodal research and print–digital media comparison studies, and extends the reading fie…
Parent–child shared reading of scratch-and-sniff books
This study extends the research on shared book reading (SBR) by specifically examining the role of smell in parent–child SBR sessions observed at home. Drawing on qualitative methods, we analysed the verbal engagement of ten Norwegian families and their three to five-year-olds reading an olfactory book (the scratch-and-sniff book Peter Follows His Nose). We followed socio-semiotic theorisations (Kress and Van Leeuwen 2002), to critically evaluate…
The significance of children’s olfactory experiences in a Norwegian kindergarten
This study is a researcher-practitioner action inquiry which was used to explore children’s sensory experiences with a focus on the sense of smell (olfaction). We critically considered the early childhood theories that positioned children's sensory learning within equitable, socially just early childhood approaches and connected them to an action inquiry approach. The data comprise a systematic documentation of the odours experienced by children …
Funds of courage
Children’s reading for pleasure is associated with significant academic and personal benefits and is widely recognised as an effective way to leverage social change, yet in schools this is not fully capitalised upon. The authors connect extant research in this area to the seminal concepts of Funds of Knowledge and Funds of Identity to advance the notion of Funds of Courage and unify literature on dark Funds of Identity and subjective sense, in or…
Fostering children’s agency in their learning futures
The discourse surrounding the potential educational transformation brought about by generative AI has largely neglected the sensory aspect of learning. In this position paper, I emphasize the significance of sensory studies and their theoretical foundations of embodiment and multimodality as catalysts for novel perspectives on the intersection of AI and the future of education. I delve into the question of whether generative AI serves as a precur…
Tracing the smells of childhoods with an olfactory research inquiry
This paper proposes a multi-method olfactory inquiry to document the rich ways in which children's sense of smell is embodied and embedded in an interplay of senses and socio-spatial relationships. I approach olfaction as a conceptual strategy and connect it to socio-material and socio-spatial theories to illustrate the ways in which close empirical attention to olfaction can provide new insights into children's sensory experiences. An olfactory …
Gains and challenges with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System in a social pedagogical tradition
Introduction This qualitative study explores how Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals’ perceptions of gains and challenges using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS, Pre-K and Toddler) within the social pedagogical tradition in Norwegian ECEC. Methods Focus group interviews ( n = 22), group interviews ( n = 4), and in-depth interviews ( n = 3) were conducted online, followed by conventional content analysis. Results …
Children’s multisensory experiences in museums
This case study was designed to engage children’s sense of smell through a story-related museum exhibition. Children’s responses to the exhibition, with particular attention to their olfactory perceptions of the odors at the exhibition, were solicited through researcher-child interviews and children’s drawings. Responses from 28 children (girls N = 14, boys N = 14) aged between 4.5–8 years were analyzed after they visited the exhibition using the…
Lockdown literacies
Children’s critical thinking skills
The significance of learning to think critically from a young age is well documented. Early childhood educators play an essential role in children’s critical skills development. Therefore, it is crucial to understand their perceptions of this concept. This qualitative study explored Norwegian early childhood educators’ perceptions of critical thinking (CT). Ten educators representing three different kindergartens were interviewed. Thematic analys…
Beyond Personalization
This essay explains how, from the theoretical perspective of Basil Bernstein's three “conditions for democracy,” the current pedagogy of artificially intelligent personalized learning seems inadequate. Building on Bernstein's comprehensive work and more recent research concerned with personalized education, Natalia Kucirkova and Sandra Leaton Gray suggest three principles for advancing personalized education and artificial intelligence (AI). They…
Incorporating smell into children's museums
We report on how we integrated smell into the classic children's story ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to enhance a public children's museum exhibition. The study employed Wenger's (1998) social theory of learning as its conceptual framework. It aimed to enhance children's sensory experience in a local Norwegian museum through a collaboration between academia and the industry. We used five abstract smells that were included in five wooden boxes and strat…
Sensorium
New directions for early literacy in a digital age
In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children's Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with staff in pre- and post-interviews and observed how they were integrated into practice over a two-month…
Children’s agency and reading with story-apps
A comprehensive understanding of children’s motivation to read e-books requires a multifaceted and contextualized conceptualization of children’s agency. In this study, agency was operationalized as a set of behaviour indicators of children’s control (behavioural agency), adults’ perceptions of reader identities afforded by the content and format of books (social agency), and specific multimedia and interactive features that afford personalisatio…
An integrative framework for studying, designing and conceptualising interactivity in children's digital books
In the past five years, there have been significant changes concerning the material and design properties of digital books, with an impact on children's enjoyment and learning from reading on screen. Despite the rapid advances in technology, research on children's digital books is disjointed. This is because of no consistent approach to the study of interactivity, an under‐theorised relationship between print and digital books, and a binary desig…
The effects of personalisation on young children's spontaneous speech during shared book reading
Tracing the smells of childhoods with an olfactory research inquiry
This paper proposes a multi-method olfactory inquiry to document the rich ways in which children's sense of smell is embodied and embedded in an interplay of senses and socio-spatial relationships. I approach olfaction as a conceptual strategy and connect it to socio-material and socio-spatial theories to illustrate the ways in which close empirical attention to olfaction can provide new insights into children's sensory experiences. An olfactory …
Reading personalized books with preschool children enhances their word acquisition
This study examines whether books that contain personalized content are better facilitators of young children’s word acquisition than books which are not personalized for a child. In a repeated-measures experimental design, 18 children (mean age 3;10) were read a picture book which contained both personalized and non-personalized sections, with unknown, real, target words embedded in each section. The book was read to the children on two occasion…
New directions for early literacy in a digital age
In this paper, we discuss how iPads offer innovative opportunities for early literacy learning but also present challenges for teachers and children. We lent iPads to a Children's Centre nursery (3- to 4-year-olds), a primary school reception class (4- to 5-year-olds) and a Special School (7- to 13-year-olds), discussed their potential uses with staff in pre- and post-interviews and observed how they were integrated into practice over a two-month…
The effects of personalisation on young children's spontaneous speech during shared book reading
Storytelling and story-acting
In the light of sustained interest in the potential value of young children’s narrative play, this article examines Vivian Gussin Paley’s approach to storytelling and story-acting, in this case with 3- to 5-year-olds. It scrutinises how children’s narratives are co-constructed during adult–child and peer interactions through spoken and embodied modes, as their stories are scribed by an adult and later dramatised by their peers. Data are drawn fro…
An integrative framework for studying, designing and conceptualising interactivity in children's digital books
In the past five years, there have been significant changes concerning the material and design properties of digital books, with an impact on children's enjoyment and learning from reading on screen. Despite the rapid advances in technology, research on children's digital books is disjointed. This is because of no consistent approach to the study of interactivity, an under‐theorised relationship between print and digital books, and a binary desig…
Is technology good for education? By Neil Selwyn
In his recently published book Is Technology Good for Education? Neil Selwyn encourages us to think critically about the trend of a wide adoption of technology in education and to consider, in a di
Children’s agency and reading with story-apps
A comprehensive understanding of children’s motivation to read e-books requires a multifaceted and contextualized conceptualization of children’s agency. In this study, agency was operationalized as a set of behaviour indicators of children’s control (behavioural agency), adults’ perceptions of reader identities afforded by the content and format of books (social agency), and specific multimedia and interactive features that afford personalisatio…
Reader, come home
Change is a difficult-to-accept but inevitable condition of life. When it comes to the new forms of stories that we produce and consume, change becomes the topic of intense philosophical debates, r
Children save lives
Part of effective Early Childhood Education and Care is to support children’s awareness of hazards and management of possible injuries during risky play. This study evaluated the attitudes of Norwegian kindergarten teachers towards ‘Henry first aid training’ and its impact on 3-6-year olds’ understanding of first aid. 588 kindergarten employees completed an online survey and 50 children (26 boys and 24 girls) participated in semi-structured inter…
An empirical investigation of parent-child shared reading of digital personalized books
Numerous studies have documented the benefits of parent-child shared reading of print books, but few studies have examined parent-child reading behaviours with digital personalized books. This lab-based study examined the child language outcomes following shared reading of a personalized digital book by twenty-six British mothers and their 3- to 4-year-old children. The digital book included pages that were individualized to each participating ch…
Parent-child joint reading of digital books in bilingual families in Malta
We examined parent-child shared reading of Maltese and English e-books in four bilingual families. Analysis of the participant videos, questionnaires and semi-structured interview data revealed positive engagement of the participating families, substantiated with three main themes from the participants’ interview accounts: balanced use of e-books and print books, the importance of nurturing child's independence with e-book use, and the unique val…
A Comparison of Children’s Reading on Paper Versus Screen
This meta-analysis examines the inconsistent findings across experimental studies that compared children’s learning outcomes with digital and paper books. We quantitatively reviewed 39 studies reported in 30 articles (n = 1,812 children) and compared children’s story comprehension and vocabulary learning in relation to medium (reading on paper versus on-screen), design enhancements in digital books, the presence of a dictionary, and adult support…
Designing personalised instruction
Advances in technology have increased the opportunities for designers to personalise instruction based on student actions. We conducted semi‐structured interviews with an international sample of educational professionals including researchers, teachers and designers, and reviewed interdisciplinary literature on personalisation to propose a framework for personalisation research and design. Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed that profess…
Gender Equality, Human Development, and Pisa Results over Time
Gender equality through the empowerment, representation, and provision of equal opportunities for all, regardless of gender, is increasingly recognised as a driver of social outcomes and a fundamental human right. This study explores the longitudinal (2006–2018) relationship between gender equality, human development, and education results as measured by PISA. Gender equality and human development are consistently correlated with PISA scores at e…
Living with digital materialisations of self
Editorial for Learning, Media and Technology \nVolume 47, 2022 - Issue 3: The Methodologies of Materiality in Digital Representations Of ‘Self’
Understanding parents’ conflicting beliefs about children’s digital book reading
In light of growing evidence that many parents are deeply concerned about their young children’s increasing technology use, in this paper we report on aspects of a study funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, where we sought to understand parents’ views on children’s digital book reading. We introduced seven families to four award-winning digital books (story apps and e-books), observed how the mothers mediated their children’s di…
Professionals’ Perceptions of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System as a structure for professional community and development
This qualitative study explored Norwegian ECEC professionals’ perceptions and reflections concerning the use of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Pre-K and Toddler for professional development. Focus group interviews (n = 22), group interviews (n = 4), and in-depth interviews (n = 3) were conducted online. Conventional content analysis was performed using NVivo 12 software. The professionals reported that CLASS contributed to positi…
Children's stories and multisensory engagement
This study builds on child-centred early education models that emphasise active listening to children's voices and follow participatory research methods to accommodate children's expressions. We used the cultural probes method with eleven Norwegian 4-5-year-olds to elicit children's storytelling and multisensory engagement. The children were encouraged to tell a story using open-ended art-making materials provided in a “story box”. Children's sto…
Impacts of a personalized book giveaway intervention in low-SES households
Gains and challenges with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System in a social pedagogical tradition
Introduction This qualitative study explores how Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) professionals’ perceptions of gains and challenges using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS, Pre-K and Toddler) within the social pedagogical tradition in Norwegian ECEC. Methods Focus group interviews ( n = 22), group interviews ( n = 4), and in-depth interviews ( n = 3) were conducted online, followed by conventional content analysis. Results …
Children’s multisensory experiences in museums
This case study was designed to engage children’s sense of smell through a story-related museum exhibition. Children’s responses to the exhibition, with particular attention to their olfactory perceptions of the odors at the exhibition, were solicited through researcher-child interviews and children’s drawings. Responses from 28 children (girls N = 14, boys N = 14) aged between 4.5–8 years were analyzed after they visited the exhibition using the…
Lockdown literacies
Children’s critical thinking skills
The significance of learning to think critically from a young age is well documented. Early childhood educators play an essential role in children’s critical skills development. Therefore, it is crucial to understand their perceptions of this concept. This qualitative study explored Norwegian early childhood educators’ perceptions of critical thinking (CT). Ten educators representing three different kindergartens were interviewed. Thematic analys…
Beyond Personalization
This essay explains how, from the theoretical perspective of Basil Bernstein's three “conditions for democracy,” the current pedagogy of artificially intelligent personalized learning seems inadequate. Building on Bernstein's comprehensive work and more recent research concerned with personalized education, Natalia Kucirkova and Sandra Leaton Gray suggest three principles for advancing personalized education and artificial intelligence (AI). They…
Incorporating smell into children's museums
We report on how we integrated smell into the classic children's story ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to enhance a public children's museum exhibition. The study employed Wenger's (1998) social theory of learning as its conceptual framework. It aimed to enhance children's sensory experience in a local Norwegian museum through a collaboration between academia and the industry. We used five abstract smells that were included in five wooden boxes and strat…
Psychology (39 obras) · Child Development and Digital Technology (20 obras) · Sociology (20 obras) · Computer Science (16 obras) · Linguistics (16 obras) · Pedagogy (16 obras) · Developmental psychology (15 obras) · Cognitive psychology (12 obras) · Art (9 obras) · Social Psychology (9 obras)