Poster #76 - Exploring the development of young children’s achievement motivation: Teacher-child interactions around errors in preschool

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Extensive research in the achievement motivation literature has demonstrated that how students interpret their own academic errors, such as not knowing or giving a wrong answer, can shape their self-concept and motivational patterns in adaptive or maladaptive ways (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Weiner, 2010). Since academic errors are predominantly identified and addressed by teachers, student-teacher interactions around academic errors play a pivotal role in shaping student perceptions and reactions in these achievement settings (Rach, Ufer, & Heinze, 2013; Steuer & Dresel, 2015; Tulis, 2013). Yet, very little is known about the nature of young children’s academic errors and the way teachers respond to them. Therefore, the current study focuses on teacher-student interactions around errors in the preschool classroom.

A total of 18 preschool teachers participated in classroom observations of whole-class book reading and small-group center time, as well as follow-up interviews to discuss error interactions. Classroom sizes ranged from 11 to 20 children, and all children were three to five years of age. Teachers were primarily White females and children were predominantly Black and Latinx, approximately evenly divided on gender. Observations and interviews were transcribed and qualitatively coded; deductive coding was completed first based on the literature and inductive coding was then used as needed to address nuances in the data unaccounted for by the literature. Following the assignment of codes, symbolic analysis (Daw, Finney, & Tracy, 2003) was used to identify patterns across codes.

In-depth preliminary results from one classroom are available, but full results will be presented at the conference. A total of 13 errors occurred; six codes were identified for student errors and 12 codes were identified for teacher responses (See Table 1 for Student Error Codes and Table 2 for Teacher Response Codes). Symbolic analysis illuminated specific patterns across error and response types. The first pattern identified during book reading was that errors deviating from teachers’ content expectations (e.g., off topic from the teacher’s question) were persistent (i.e., the same error occurred more than once). Additionally, the teacher often ignored the student’s error or re-asked the initial question (asked by the teacher). A pattern found in relation to these types of responses (i.e., ignoring or re-asking) was that each time the teacher responded in these ways, they also did not search for the source of the child’s error or elaborate on the child’s thinking process toward higher learning. A final pattern that emerged was the cooccurrence of persistent errors discussed first and the lack of search or elaboration in the teacher response. That is, when children persistently deviated from the content of teachers’ expectations, the teacher’s response consistently failed to search for or elaborate on the child’s errors.

These patterns point to the critical role of the teacher in fostering children’s learning, development and achievement motivation in their earliest experiences with formal schooling. In general, preschool teachers might benefit from professional development on strategies for using student errors as teaching tools, encouraging student explanation and peer discussion to draw out and correct misconceptions.

Authors

• Carly Champagne, Temple University
  Presenting Author

• AnneMarie Hindman, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Avi Kaplan, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author