Arizona Parents’ and Teachers’ Divergent Perspectives on the Social and Emotional Development of Children

• In Event: Evaluating a Statewide Community-Based Initiative to Enhance School Readiness: A Kindergarten Profile

Abstract

Objective or purposes
This the purpose of this paper is to discuss findings from The Devereau Early Childhood Assessment (DECA), a 37-item rating scale designed to identify a child’s resilience in responding to adverse life situations by examining the levels of protective and risk factors. Protective factors are influenced by (a) family support, (b) community support systems (e.g., quality child care programs), and (c) child attributes (temperament, personality, intelligence, and behavior traits). Children lacking or with underdeveloped protective factors are hypothesized to be more at risk and likely to experience negative life outcomes such as emotional and behavioral problems or learning difficulties.

Perspectives or theoretical framework (Please see symposium overview)

Data sources, evidence, objects, or materials
The DECA scale was completed by 1,134 parents/guardians and 206 teachers who rated 1,122 children on several indicators of social and emotional development.

Results/Conclusions
Protective factors. Results of the analysis for protective factors of 1,134 children rated by parents/guardians and their teachers indicated that the majority of the children in the sample were reported to be resilient, their behaviors being categorized as both “typical” or of “strength,” which means they have the capacity to achieve positive outcomes when under stress or facing adversity. Interestingly, more guardians reported concerns about their child’s protective factors than teachers. For example, 18% of guardians were concerned about their child’s ability to handle stressful situations positively as opposed to only 8.6% of teachers being concerned.
Risk factors. As for behavior issues considered to be of concern, more than a third of the guardians expressed concern about their child’s behavior compared to only 11% of teachers. Similarly, while nearly 90% of teachers rated children as having “typical” behavior for their age in the classroom, only 64.6% of parents/guardians felt that their behavior was “typical” in the home.
Conclusions. Some reasons for the discrepancy between teachers and parents may be that teachers have observed children’s behavior during the school day which is most likely more structured than the home environment and more socially constraining, leading to fewer behavior problems. It is also possible that teacher perception of behavior is based on a larger number of children and broader experiences compared with parents and, therefore, they may have a more realistic expectation for what is typical in a classroom. It could be also that teachers might not have known children as well as guardians because teachers were rating children’s behaviors the first few months of school.

Author

• Lawrence Gallagher, Northern Arizona University