Learning to Test

Today, four future psychologists, undergraduates of the Faculty of Arts of Prešov University in Prešov – Zuzana Šašalová, Mária Bertová, Monika Hirková and Lucia Stahovcová – have begun their training at ETP aimed at instructing them to be able to test children that are involved in the research of the application of the Feuerstein Instrumental Enrichment Method (FIE) in education of children from marginalized Roma communities. In September 2015, sixty children are going to be tested, using the test series developed by the researchers of Charles University. The series is aimed to test children’s linguistic and cognitive area. Today´s training, focused on the issue of cognitive testing, is led by PhDr. Anna Páchová, PhD of the Faculty of Education of Charles University in Prague. Tomorrow´s training is going to be dedicated to the issue of testing of the children’s language skills.

In the school year 2015/2016 ETP, in cooperation with the Faculty of Education of Charles University, is going to perform a research aimed at the rigorous verification of the FIE method effectiveness in comparison to other education methods at three primary schools – in Veľká Ida, Herľany (attended by children from Rankovce) and Stará Ľubovňa.

The research involves sixty children from marginalized Roma communities who are about to first enroll in primary school. In each of the three localities, there is going to be a FIE After-School Club taking place, led by a certified FIE Instructor. For the purpose of comparison, there is going to be a second school club working at each of the schools at the same time, not applying the FIE method. The lessons of both clubs are going to last three hours a day every day for the entire school year. For the purpose of the FIE Clubs, five teachers of the primary schools involved have been trained in the FIE method. In March and April 2015, the school teachers and ETP educators underwent an eighty-lesson FIE Standard course. At the beginning of the 2015/2016 school year, ETP is going to organize another eighty-hour FIE Basic course for teachers and educators.