Summer Madness: Do Children's Noncognitive Skills Vary Between School and Summer Months?

• In Event: Academics in the Earliest Years of Formal Schooling: Building Evidence for Policy and Practice

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how cognitive and noncognitive skill development may vary depending on whether or not young children are in school.

Framework
Since the early 1900s, researchers have been interested in how children’s cognitive skills may change over the summer (White 1906; Cooper et al. 1996). More recent research has built evidence that children learn at equal rates during the school year, and that differential summer learning is the cause of many achievement gaps (Alexander et al. 2001; Alexander et al. 2007; Cooper et al. 1996; Entwisle & Alexander 1992; Hayes & Grether 1969; Heyns 1978). Educational researchers now commonly refer to a faucet theory: when school is in session, the faucet is turned on and all children are able to access school resources and make equal gains. During the summer however, the faucet is turned off and families must rely on their own resources to provide learning opportunities for their children (Entwisle et al. 2001). Many researchers believe that socioeconomic achievement gaps emerge or enlarge over the summer because of these varying family resources (Caldwell 1989; Entwisle et al. 2001; Todd & Wolpin 2007).

There is a second rapidly growing body of literature that emphasizes the importance of developing children’s noncognitive skills such as attention and self-regulation. These studies show that noncognitive skills are significantly correlated with schooling outcomes such as grades, school attendance rates, high school completion rates, and college attendance (Duckworth & Seligman 2005; Duncan & Magnuson 2011).

Data and methods
This study attempts to marry these two bodies of literature by using a nationally representative data set—the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 2010-11, which will follow over 18,000 students from kindergarten through the spring of 2016. Data is collected from direct child assessments as well as reports by their parents/guardians, teachers, school administrators, and child care providers. By drawing on data from fall of kindergarten through spring of first grade, we use a child fixed effects model to estimate the changes in learning and developmental trends during school months in comparison to summer months.

Results & Significance
Our analysis supports previous studies on summer slowdown in both math and reading for children in the summer between kindergarten and first grade. Also replicating earlier studies, we find SES differences in the summer slowdown, with a greater drop for children whose mothers are less educated. We find a significant drop in summer rates for the following noncognitive skills: approaches to learning, interpersonal skills, and internalizing problems, though no significant changes for externalizing problems. Subgroup analysis by maternal education level shows larger decreases for lower educated mothers, though these differences are not statistically significant. Despite the growing interest in noncognitive skills and its relationship to cognitive outcomes, little is known about changes in noncognitive skills over the summer months and how these skills vary with school months. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study attempting to address this question.

Authors

• Jonathan Guryan, Northwestern University

• Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago

• Ijun Lai, Northwestern University