Maxine Schaefer

Why FSU?

The Florida Centre for Reading Research brought me to FSU as researchers there are thought leaders in my field. Secondly, I came here to learn more about data sharing and other open scholarship practices from Dr Sara Hart.

Motivation to pursue a graduate degree

I pursued a graduate degree to develop my research skills so that I could work on providing evidence based solutions to improving basic education quality in South Africa.

Importance and/or impact of research and work

My research explores how phonological processing skills are related to literacy development in first and second language. Knowing which skills are related to literacy longitudinally helps teachers know which skills should be taught when. Furthermore, my research shows that literacy develops similarly in closely-related languages, indicating that research on one language (e.g., isiXhosa) can be used to understand literacy in another (e.g., isiZulu). This vastly reduces the amount of resources that need to be spent on research.

Career aspirations

After my Fulbright experience I would like to be involved in applying research to improving education at scale in South Africa. I would like to be involved at the early childhood and/or early grade level since it is during these stages that the foundation of literacy and numeracy are laid. I am also motivated to identify aspiring researchers and provide them with mentoring and support to develop their skills.

Advice for anyone considering graduate school

Graduate school is a big commitment. I would encourage those considering graduate school to clearly identify their career goals, and country needs and make sure the graduate program aligns with these. I would also encourage everyone to create a personal development plan which lists out the transferable skills (e.g., programming, written communication) you want to learn. Make sure you can learn these skills in graduate school and/or will have time to learn these in your own time.

Accomplishments during graduate career

I am proud of the language and phonological processing assessments I have created and shared for South African languages. I lead the co-development of contextually appropriate productive vocabulary tests for isiZulu, Siswati and English in South Africa. These materials are freely accessible here. I also developed phonological processing assessments for isiXhosa and isiZulu for my PhD which are freely accessible here. I am most proud of the employees and colleagues I have mentored who have now found relevant employment.