Defining the Self-Regulatory Classroom Environment: What Is It and How Do We Measure It?

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Abstract

Self-regulatory skills predict academic and life success (McClelland & Cameron, 2011; Robson et al., 2020). Measuring self-regulation and the inputs that shape it in the early elementary school years has thus become an intense area of interest, among researchers as well as among school district officials. However, the existing evidence base to guide decisions around how best to support early self-regulatory skills in early classroom contexts is limited. In particular, little is known about precisely which specific classroom-based strategies most effectively build children’s self-regulatory skills, and how these features of the classroom self-regulatory environment may interact with features of the classroom instructional environment.

The proposed Roundtable will bring together leading experts at the intersection of classroom-, teacher,- and child-level measurement of the self-regulatory and instructional environments and children’s self-regulatory outcomes. The four experts include Drs. Stephanie Jones and Dale Farran, developers of new measures of classroom- and dyadic teacher-child level classroom self-regulatory features; Dr. Megan McClelland, who developed a widely-used direct assessment of self-regulation; and Dr. Jenna Finch, an expert in measurement of children’s self-regulation skills across direct assessments, teacher reports, observations, and group-based protocols.

Discussion will focus on lessons learned from new measures designed to assess the classroom self-regulatory environment and child self-regulation, and where the field needs to go next to adequately define and capture the self-regulatory classroom environment. The conversation will be moderated by Dr. Deborah Phillips, a leading national expert on early contextual impacts on child learning and development.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Moderator

• Deborah A Phillips, Georgetown University

Panelists

• Stephanie M Jones, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Dale C Farran, Vanderbilt University

• Megan M McClelland, Oregon State University - Corvallis

• Jenna Elizabeth Finch, University of Nebraska - Lincoln