Parent Praise During Spatial Tasks: Mothers, Fathers, and Longitudinal Relations to Math and Spatial Skills

• In Event: 2-137 - A Broader Look at Parents' Early Informal Math Support

Integrative Statement

The type of praise parents give their young children predicts children's motivational frameworks and beliefs about intelligence years later (Gunderson et al., 2013). Children who hear more process praise (e.g., "you did a good job") rather than person praise (e.g., "you're smart") tend to think that intelligence is malleable and are more confident in the face of obstacles (Zentall & Morris, 2010). Does this conclusion apply to praise during spatial activities? Spatial skill is a strong predictor of future success in STEM fields, so this relation is interesting. Furthermore, does parent gender matter? Parents often hold gender-stereotyped beliefs about math competence and achievement (Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine, & Beilock, 2012), and the same may be true for spatial skill.

We explored whether mothers and fathers differ in terms of the amount and type of praise they give their children during joint spatial activities, and hypothesized that parents' process praise during a joint spatial task would positively predict children’s math and spatial skills. To do so, we utilized the Philadelphia sample from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. In 1st-grade, children (N=57, 31 girls) completed two spatial tasks with their mother and father (or step-father): Etch-A-Sketch and block construction (2-D pattern blocks with mothers, 3-D building blocks with fathers). We transcribed videos and coded for parent praise utterances. Parents' praise was coded as person praise, process praise, or other praise (e.g., "cool", "wow"). Fathers gave more total praise to children (percent of total utterances, M=9.28%, SD=4.91%) than mothers (M=7.62%, SD=4.37%), t(55)=2.23, p=.030 (all analyses were conducted after arcsine transforming percentages). Within each type of praise, mothers gave more person praise (percent of total praise, M=4.45%, SD=8.06%) than fathers (M=1.23%, SD=2.67%), t(55) = -2.43, p = .019, whereas fathers gave more other praise (M=88.29%, SD=12.49%) than mothers (M=81.34%, SD=14.95%), t(55) = 2.55, p = .013.

We examined whether parents' process praise during this 1st grade joint spatial interaction predicted children's math achievement (Woodcock-Johnson Broad Math) in 3rd- and 5th-grades or spatial skill (WASI Block Design) in 4th-grade. Simultaneous regressions showed that the percentage of father's process praise out of total utterances uniquely predicted children's 3rd through 5th-grade math and spatial achievement, even when controlling for fathers' total praise and total utterances (see Table 4.1). Further, fathers' process praise did not significantly predict children's reading achievement (Woodcock-Johnson Letter-Word ID) in 3rd or 5th grade (ps>.10), supporting domain specificity. On the other hand, mothers' process praise did not significantly predict children's later achievement (ps>.60). These results suggest the possibility that amount and type of praise children receive during spatial activities differs by parent gender. However, it is possible that the type of spatial activity (2D versus 3D activity) might be more important in explaining the amount and types of praise than parent gender. Overall, the longitudinal relation between parents' process praise to children’s math and spatial skills is intriguing.

Authors

• Kexin Ren, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• Nora S. Newcombe, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Gunderson, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author