Examining the measurement and contribution of kindergarten mathematics instruction

• In Event: Classroom language environments in preschool and kindergarten: Variability across activities, time, and content

Abstract

The relation between mathematical achievement in early childhood and future academic success is well established (Duncan et al., 2007; Watts et al., 2014). However, the effect of instruction on mathematical performance is less well-documented and often reliant upon self-report instruction measures and standardized achievement measures (Engel, Claessens, & Finch, 2013; Ribner, 2020). The current study seeks to examine the effect of recorded classroom mathematics instruction on the growth of children’s early mathematical skills.
Four schools, fourteen kindergarten teachers, and 98 children (Mage = 5.55(0.33)) were recruited to investigate this research question. Children completed counting and addition measures three times across the school year from an individualized assessment novel to the United States, called Math Garden (Klinkenberg, Straatemeier, van der Maas, 2011). Teachers completed a survey at the beginning of the school year, asking questions specific to mathematical skills and instruction. Eleven teachers also recorded an entire school day of instruction using an audio recording device (LENA) in the middle of the school year. From these recordings, quality, quantity, and content of mathematics instruction were coded for analyses. Longitudinal multilevel models were used to assess whether the content, quantity, or quality of the kindergarten classroom mathematics instruction predicted children’s growth in counting and addition skills.
On average, teachers reported spending 50 minutes a day on mathematical topics and were observed spending approximately 25 minutes on mathematics instruction (M(SD) = 26.16 (13.85)) during the recorded day (see Figure 1). Teachers used around 407 conversational turns, on average, during the school day (M(SD) = 407.09 (173.98)), which captured the quality of instruction (Gilkerson et al., 2018, Romeo et al., 2018). However, some classrooms used a minimum of 191 conversational turns, and others used a maximum of 731 conversational turns. Coding of the content of the mathematics instruction demonstrated of the possible 36 content codes, only 21 were used in the kindergarten classrooms represented in this study. The most common content topics included addition, time, and counting sets. Content and quantity of mathematics instruction were multicollinear; thus, content and quality, and quantity and quality were examined in separate models. Results from the longitudinal multilevel models demonstrated that neither the quantity, quality, nor the content of classroom mathematics instruction significantly predicted growth in counting or addition abilities across the kindergarten year (β(SE) ranged from -.00(.00) to .15(.08); see Table 1).
This study was one of the first to use audio recordings to investigate kindergarten classroom mathematics instruction and its contribution to early mathematical growth. Results demonstrated that the amount of time kindergarten teachers spent in mathematics instruction was less than reported in previous studies (Engel et al., 2013). Further, as measured, no classroom instruction variables predicted children’s mathematical skill growth across the kindergarten school year. Given the importance of classroom instruction for understanding schooling as an intervention on early academic skills, these results highlighted critical methodological differences between previous research and a need for more robust measurement in assessing classroom mathematics instruction for future work.

Authors

• Alexa Ellis, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
  Presenting Author

• Pamela Davis-Kean, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author