Early Elementary Science Instruction: Does More Time on Science or Science Topics/Skills Predict Science Achievement in the Early Grades?

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

This study estimates the degree to which time spent on science, the breadth of science topics/skills covered, and instructional approach (teacher versus student centric) predict science achievement in the earliest grades of elementary school (kindergarten through 2nd grade). Additionally, the study explores the degree to which these relationships vary for subgroups of students such as racial/ethnic minorities, students from lower-socioeconomic status backgrounds, English language learners, and students with lower prior academic achievement.

We leverage the newly released Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 2011 (ECLS-K:2011). The ECLS-K:2011 is a nationally representative, longitudinal study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. The study includes a nationally representative sample of students who were kindergartners in the 2010-2011 school year. For this study, we focus on data from the students’ first three years of formal schooling, namely kindergarten through second grade (2010-11 through 2012-13 school years). A unique feature of the ECLS-K:2011 is its inclusion of science achievement measures in the earliest years of school. We use these standardized test scores as the dependent variable. The key independent variables include time on science (minutes per week reported by teachers), the number of science topics covered (i.e. dinosaurs and fossils, weather, light, sound, three states of matter, or ecology), the number of science skills covered (i.e. using the scientific method, laboratory skills, communicating scientific findings, or using tools to gather information), and the instructional approach (i.e. working independently, small groups, teacher led, etc.).

Our analytic approach included ordinary least squares (OLS) regression as well as a series of fixed-effects models. In our primary models, we used OLS with a robust set of student, teacher, and school background characteristic controls. Additionally, models including school fixed-effects were used to implicitly control for unobservable school-level confounders, and models including student fixed-effects were used to control for unobservable time invariant characteristics of students.

Results indicate that time spent on science instruction across the first three years of elementary school does not consistently predict higher science achievement. Though some specifications, specifically the fully specified regression models without school or student fixed-effects, predict higher science achievement from time on science, the school and student fixed-effects models suggested insignificant relationships. Interesting, results from models predicting mathematics and reading achievement from time on content in those subjects also showed somewhat similar patterns, though significant results were observed in the student fixed-effects models. Examining the number of science topics and skills covered revealed no significant relationships with science achievement. These primary findings were found to hold across a number of subgroups, with little evidence of heterogeneous relationships for racial/ethnic minority students, English language learners, or females. We explore possible explanations for the lack of significant results.

Authors

• Chris Curran, University of Maryland - Baltimore County

• James Carl Kitchin, University of Maryland - Baltimore County