Classroom Experiences Across the Early Grades: The Importance of Individual Experiences

• In Event: 3-021 - Classroom Quality in Early Childhood: Understanding the Importance of Individual Experiences

Integrative Statement

There is a clear consensus that children’s classroom experiences in the early years have important influences on their learning and development (e.g. Pianta et al., 2008). Recently, researchers and practitioners have begun to examine how children’s classroom experiences vary across preschool and early elementary school. For example, recent work by Bassok and colleagues has shown the kindergarten is increasingly ‘academicatized’ and that kindergarten activities are becoming more similar to first grade activities (Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2016). However, much of this literature is focused on teacher self-reports, which may have accuracy issues as it is hard to remember how much time is spent in particular activities. Additionally, because they are teacher reported, these constructs are captured at the classroom-level, ignoring possible individual-level differences in children’s classroom experiences.
In light of these gaps, the purpose of this study was to examine how children’s experiences in the classroom vary by grade, from preschool to grade 3, and to examine how much of their experiences is shared at the classroom level. We completed observations of classroom activities of 4-8 children (mean=6.6) in each of 84 classrooms in a large, socioeconomically diverse Midwestern school district. We focused on three aspects of classroom experiences: grouping (e.g., whole group, small group); activity/instructional method (e.g. direct instruction, worksheets) and content area (e.g. literacy/language, math). Each child was observed for 10 5-minute intervals, which totaled 6,679 intervals. For each grade level, we first examined the percentage of intervals fallen in each category of grouping, activity, and content area, to provide a general picture of children’s classroom experience. We then employed multilevel models to investigate the amount of variation at the individual level and at the classroom level. Specifically, we used the dummy-coded categories of grouping, activity, and content area as model outcomes, with coded intervals as level-1 observations, nested within children (level-2), nested within classrooms (level-3).
Table 1 shows the proportion of intervals during which a particular activity took place by grade. Grouping, activity, and content all showed variation across grades. For example, small groups were much more common in pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Language and literacy content was observed most frequently across all grades, which is not surprising given the data is collected in a state that has a high stakes reading exam in 3rd grade. Table 2 displays the proportion of variation at individual level vs. classroom level for each category of classroom experience by grade. In terms of the amount of time that children were observed in whole-class grouping in pre-K, the majority of the variation (63%) was contributed by individual differences, whereas in higher grades (K, G1, and G3) 62% to 70% of the variance was attributable to classroom differences. A similar pattern was found across other experiences.
These findings show that children do experience different classroom environments across their early schooling and that these experiences are highly individualized within classrooms. This points to the importance of understanding these individual experiences as a critical future direction for early education research.

Authors

• Kelly M Purtell, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Hui Jiang, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura Justice, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tzu-Jung Lin, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessica Logan, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author