Measuring support for children’s self-sustaining engagement in learning in Colombian, Ghanaian, Jordanian, and Kenyan preschool and primary classrooms

• In Event: Beyond letters and numbers: Conceptualizing and measuring the inputs and outcomes of play across contexts

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in supporting learning through play across many low and middle-income countries, measures of how contexts can support learning through play are lacking. In our four-country project (Colombia, Ghana, Jordan and Kenya), the concept of “self-sustaining engagement” was identified as central to learning through play. We define it as engagement characterized as voluntary, intrinsically motivated, and incorporating aspects of “flow” states. This construct guided the development and validation of measures of adult-child interactions in early childhood centers and primary-grade classrooms that support self-sustaining engagement. In the 3-5-year age-group, tools were developed for the early childhood center or classroom, while tools for the 6-12-year age-group were focused on the primary-grade classroom. There were also classroom inventories to assess physical aspects of the classroom – such as materials on the walls – and structural features of quality that might support self-sustaining engagement in learning. In this presentation, we focus on the observational assessments (conducted by trained external observers), although the toolkit also incorporates teacher survey measures of the same constructs.

We developed 6 constructs to measure in each tool (with between 5 and 11 items per construct), focused on teacher behaviors that support self-sustaining engagement: Support for agency, exploration, problem solving, connection to personal or community experience, social connectedness, and positive emotional climate. In each country, the observational tools were developed in three phases – the Build phase used qualitative data (observational and semi-structured interview) to understand local concepts of self-sustaining engagement and instances of how it is supported in centers or schools. The Adapt phase used cognitive interviewing and small-scale (approx. 25 schools, centers or homes) quantitative data to refine the tools. In the Test Phase we used large-scale (between 75 and 150 classrooms in each country) quantitative data to assess the psychometric properties of the tool.

Methods and Results

This presentation focuses on the Test phase psychometric analyses for the classroom observational tools. Data were collected for the 3-5 age group from Colombia, Jordan and Ghana, and for the 6-12 age group from Colombia, Ghana and Kenya. Exploratory factor analysis was accompanied by confirmatory factor analysis in each country and for each tool. Across countries and age groups, support for exploration and problem solving items combined to form a single factor. The preprimary tool retained, in addition to support for exploration / problem solving, factors of a) support for connection to personal and community experiences and b) support for relational climate as the measure of social connectedness. The primary tool retained, in addition to support for exploration / problem solving, factors of a) support for agency and b) support for social connectedness in the form of camaraderie and classroom togetherness. Selected data on convergent validity with teacher survey-based measures of pedagogical practices and qualifications as well as predictive validity with child outcomes (which were available in Ghana, in the form of the IDELA or International Development and Early Learning Assessment) will be presented.

Authors

• Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Matthew Jukes, RTI International

• Tahiya Mahbub

• Sharon Kim

• Peggy Dubeck

• Jonathan Stern, RTI International

• Kellie Lynne Betts, RTI International

• Tabitha Nduku

• Casey Moran

• Kendra Strouf, New York University

• Sharon Wolf, University of Pennsylvania