• Title: "Educators’ Self-Evaluation (EduSE): An innovative approach to educator evaluation using the Discrete Choice Modelling"

Source of funding:Special Accoun for Research - University of Crete

Participation as: Member of the main research team

Time period: 28/2/2014 till 27/2/2016

Description: This project (EduSE-Educators' Self-Evaluation) aspires to provide to the educational community an innovative way for the self-evaluation of early educators. Advanced and innovative statistical methods will be applied in the educational evaluation domain, in order to develop an educator self-evaluation instrument. The Discrete Choice Modelling (DCM) is the selected method for the development of the instrument. This method, which gave to Dan McFadden, who introduced it, a Nobel prize in 2000 in Economic sciences, is widely used in marketing, finance, biostatistics and other scientific areas, while its use in education is still very sparse. With the implementation of the DCM method in early childhood education (ECE), the EduSE project will develop an online self-evaluation instrument to support early educators evaluate their teaching competencies. Researchers with high expertise in the domains of statistics, research methods, evaluation, ECE and physical education will cooperate throughout the project’s lifecycle. When the development of a valid and reliable instrument is completed, the self-evaluation instrument will be disseminated to the national and international educational community.

• Title: «Thalis: Enhancement of the Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation with the potentiality to invite high profile researchers from abroad through the conduct of basic and applied research excellence». Title of the Sub-program : ‘Evaluation of the quality of early cyildhood education: Adaptation of ECERS-R and ECERS-E scales in the greek educational setting’

Source of funding : Operational Programme «Education and Lifelong Learning» and co-financed from the European Union (European Social Fund) and from national sources.

Participation as: Scientific Coordinator

Time period: 02/01/2012 έως30/09/2015

Website: http://earlyquality/teithe.gr

Description: This proposal attempts to address the absence of evaluation in early childhood education concerning: a) the quality of early childhood education in Greece, and b) the lack of reliable and valid evaluation instruments in Greece. Themainaim of the project is to evaluate early childhood education in Greece, through the adaptation and use of evaluation tools in preschool educational settings. For the proposed project, the evaluation scales ECERS-R (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised· Harms et al., 2003) and ECERS-E (Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Extension· Sylva et al., 2010) will be used.  These instruments are widely accepted evaluation tools, and they are implemented in the USAand in most European countries. This proposal includes the following phases: 1) adaptation of the instruments and their training manuals, 2) assessors' training, 3) conducting the pilot study, 4) conducting the main study, and 5) dissemination of the results. Scientists from 5 Universities, with the support of 4 invited researchers of international standing, will be working together for this research. Additionally, 30 early educators will participate in the study as assessors of around 400 randomly selected preschool classes

• Lifelong Learning Program (LLP), Comenius Multilateral Project (517999-LLP-2011-GR-COMENIUS-CMP). EARLY CHANGE: Promoting the professional development of early childhood educators -LLP-2011-GR-COMENIUS-CMP

Source funding: European Union, Lifelong Learning Program, Comenius Multilateral Projects
Time period: 01/12/2011 έως31/05/2014
Participations as: Scientific Coordinator
Website: http://earlychange.teithe.gr
Description:This project has three basic aims: (i) the enhancement of the professional development of early educators, and (ii) the evaluation of the early childhood education environments of these countries. Early educators from the participating countries will acquire skills that enhance their professional identity (certified assessors), and their self-assessment skills. The duration of the project will be 30 months. The innovative character of this proposal is supported by the deliverables of the project. Firstly, the training tools translated in five (5) different languages, can function as an aid for all early educators who want to self-assess their work and their preschool unit (day-care centre or kindergarten classes). Secondly, an interactive e-book containing the empirical data from the evaluation of all 6 early childhood educational systems and a wide range of “good practices” for caregivers and teachers constitute innovative actions towards the improvement of early childhood education across Europe. The partners of this project will be Universities from 6 countries (total number of nine), and organizations (total number of ten), like educational districts and municipalities, from which the participating academic staff will choose the future early educators-assessors.