The Association of Individual Characteristics, Classroom Quality, and Approaches to Learning

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Early childhood is a critical period for children to develop Approaches to learning (ATL) (Bustamante et al., 2017). ATL is malleable in early childhood and amenable to interventions (Bustamante & Hindman, 2019; Fantuzzo et al., 2011). ATL reflects the ability to manage emotions, behaviors, and attention to actively engage in learning (Hu et al., 2017), which has been found to be particularly crucial for children at risk (Razza et al., 2015). Researchers who have sought to identify various factors in the classroom context associated with ATL highlighted the important role of classroom quality (Bustamante & Hindman, 2019; Meng, 2015) and children’s characteristics and other social-emotional and social-cognitive skills, such as their social skills, behavior problems, and executive function for ATL (Dominguez et al., 2011; Sasser et al., 2015; Vitiello & Greenfield, 2017). Despite the importance, few studies focused on the growth of ATL in early childhood and examined individual and classroom factors for ATL of children from low-income families in tandem. Thus, the current study examined how individual child characteristics (i.e., gender, ethnicity, social skills, problem behavior, executive function) and the classroom quality are associated with their growth in ATL in Head Start programs.
Method
This study used the 3-year-old cohort (n=1,954) from Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey 2009 Cohort dataset (FACES 2009; Administration for Children and Families, 2013). For this study, multilevel growth curve modeling was implemented by using Stata. To test the development of ATL, we created the time variable and coded -3 for fall 2009 (HS entry), -2 for spring 2010 (first year in HS), and 0 for spring 2011(second year in HS). This study used two sets of predictors: 1) child characteristics, children’s social skills, behavior problems, and executive function at HS entry and 2) the mean scores of classroom qualities (emotional support, classroom organization, instructional support) measured using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta et al., 2008) at the first and second years.
Result/Discussion
Results showed (see Table 1) that girls, Hispanic children, and children with higher executive function, social skills, and lower problem behavior scores at the HS entry have higher ATL scores than their counterparts at the HS final point. Also, children from the classroom with higher levels of emotional support demonstrated higher ATL than those who experience lower levels of emotional support. In addition, girls over boys, Hispanic children over other ethnic groups, and children with lower social skills in the HS entry showed greater growth. Different from our expectation, children from the classroom with a higher classroom organization score showed lesser growth in ATL. Overall, these findings provided evidence showing the rapid growth in ATL in early childhood and underscore the benefit of having higher levels of social-emotional and social cognitive skills and emotional support. Meanwhile, when the classroom is structured and restricted, children could be less desirable to explore and less intrinsically motivated to learn, resulting in lower grow in ATL (Hu, 2017). Implications for practices on how to promote children’s ATL will be discussed.

Group Authors

ECEI-University of Oklahoma

Authors

• Sun Geun Kim, University of Oklahoma
  Presenting Author

• Shinyoung Jeon, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kyong-Ah Kwon, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sherri L Castle, University of Oklahoma
  Non-Presenting Author