Poster #69 - Classroom organization & management in Kindergarten: Relations to children’s self-regulation and academic achievement

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Classroom organization and management is an important facet of classroom quality in elementary school (La Paro, Pianta & Stuhlman, 2004), particularly for promoting children’s executive function (EF) development (Connor et al., 2010). Classroom organization & management have typically been assessed using broad measures of teacher behaviors (e.g., the CLASS) that do not provide teachers with concrete, fine-grained feedback on specific activities to improve the quality and effectiveness of their organization & management. The purpose of the current study is to distinguish between different types of classroom organization and management techniques that Kindergarten teachers engage in, and explore whether the duration and frequency of these activities predicts EF and academic achievement in 1st grade.
A total of 172 Kindergartners were tested on direct assessments of EF and academic achievement in the fall of Kindergarten and again in 1st grade. Classroom observations were conducted in the spring of Kindergarten and recorded the frequency and duration of time children engaged in four types of classroom organizational activities: 1) Previewing/directions captures instances when the teacher is describing the schedule for the day, discussing upcoming events, and providing directions for the next activity. 2) Management/behavior is when the teacher is discussing behavior expectations or commenting on how children in the class are behaving. 3) Management/routines is when the teacher utilizes a redirection technique (claps hands, sings song) to capture student’s attention and transition to the next activity. And 4) Planning/modeling is coded when teachers model or provide an example of an activity for students before they are tasked with doing the activity on their own.
Linear regressions were conducted with average frequency and duration of each instance of the four types of organization/management predicting children’s EF (working memory, response inhibition) and academic achievement (math, reading comprehension) in 1st grade, for a total of four regressions. Controls for baseline EF/academic achievement, age, gender, and school were included in all analyses. And standard errors were clustered at the classroom level.
Results indicated that the more instances and longer duration of each instance of Planning/modeling in Kindergarten significantly predicted stronger math achievement in 1st grade. The more instances but shorter duration of time spent in each instance of Management/behavior significantly predicted better response inhibition. And the more instances but shorter duration of time in each instance of Previewing/directions marginally predicted higher working memory and significantly predicted superior reading comprehension. Finally, frequency and duration of time spent in Management/routines did not predict any EF or academic achievement outcomes.
Findings highlight the importance of distinguishing different subtypes of teacher organization & management behaviors as they relate to children’s EF and academic achievement gains in early elementary school. These results also highlight the utility in capturing duration as well as frequency of specific instances of teacher organization and management behaviors, and how promoting these behaviors improves student outcomes.

Authors

• Lillie Moffett, University of Michigan
  Presenting Author

• Frederick J Morrison, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author