Early Boarding Experience and Emergent Academic Skills of Rural Preschoolers: Mediation and Moderation Analysis

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Background
Emergent literacy (Spira, Bracken, & Fischel, 2005) and math (Hornung, Schiltz, Brunner, & Martin, 2014) skills in early childhood substantially predict later achievement. In China, some children aged as young as 3 years attend boarding preschools (Sun & Li, 2013). They stay at school for four to five consecutive days and nights per week. Whereas some studies found that boarding benefited learning (e.g., Curto & Fryer, 2014), others found that boarders underperformed non-boarders academically (e.g., Mo et al., 2012) for school-age children. Nevertheless, little evidence was noted for the preschool period. Through following up a group of boarding and non-boarding students longitudinally, the current study aimed to examine the effects of boarding on emergent academic skills of rural preschoolers and the underlying mediation and moderation mechanisms.

Research Questions
The study explored (1) What was the association between boarding and emergent literacy and math skills? (2) Was academic motivation a mediator between boarding and child academic outcomes? (3) Did the teacher-child and parent-child relationship moderate the association between boarding and child academic outcomes? (4) Did the teacher-child and parent-child relationship moderate the mediation effect of academic motivation on the association between boarding and child academic outcomes? (5) Did the associations between boarding and academic outcomes differ by preschool class-levels?

Methods
A total of 265 rural pre-school children (136 boarders and 129 non-boarders) and their parents were recruited from Yunan, China and were followed up twice (Time 1 [T1], Time 2 [T2]) with one-year gap in between. The pre-schoolers aged 50.85 months (SD =6.41) on average at T1. At both T1 and T2, their math skills were measured using the Test of Children’s Mathematics Achievement (TCMA; Xie, 2014), and their emergent literacy skills were measured by the Chinese version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-R (C-PPVT-R; Lu & Liu, 2005). Demographics and parent-child relationships (Student–Teacher Relationship Scale [STRS]; Pianta, 2001) were parent-reported. Teacher-child relationships (Child–Parent Relationship Scale [CPRS]; Pianta, 1992) and academic motivation (from Chinese version of Preschool Learning Behaviour Scale [C-PLBS]; Wu, Hu, & Fan, 2019) were teacher-reported. Intelligence quotient was measured by the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1998) through one-on-one child assessment.

Results
Boarding status was positively associated with math performance, and negatively associated with receptive vocabulary after controlling for baseline performance, IQ, and demographics. Academic motivation fully mediated the relationship between boarding and math. Poorer teacher-child relationships were related to larger gaps in receptive vocabulary and math performance between boarders and non-boarders. Parent-child and teacher-child conflict moderated the association between boarding and motivation (See Figure 1 for full model). No moderation effects were noted for class level.

Conclusions
Boarding was positively associated with preschool children’s math skills through higher academic motivation. Nevertheless, boarders who had more conflict with their teachers or parents did not outperformed non-borders in motivation. Boarding was related to underperformance in receptive vocabulary. Supportive teacher-child relationships helped narrow down the achievement gap between boarders and non-boarders.

Keywords: boarding preschool; emergent literacy, math; rural China

Authors

• Nan XIAO, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Xiao Zhang, The University of Hong Kong
  Non-Presenting Author