First Do No Harm: Classroom Predictors of Self-Regulation Development

• In Event: Capturing What Matters: Measuring the ‘Active Ingredients’ in Public Early Childhood Programs

Abstract

The ECE field currently sits at the crossroads of renewed calls for a next generation of measurement work on quality indicators (Guerra-Rosada et al., 2021) and high stakes debates about the features of pre-k that will ensure a return on investment over time (Phillips et al., 2017). In this context, it is essential to recognize early childhood educators’ role, for better or for worse, not only as educators, but also as sources of protection from or exposure to adverse early childhood experiences as they set early developmental trajectories in motion. Developing self-regulation skills, which are among the candidates for outcomes that may carry pre-k impacts forward through school and beyond (Heckman et al., 2013; McClelland et al., 2007; Raver, Garner & Smith-Donald, 2007), are particularly vulnerable to adverse exposures (Blair, 2010) and thus warrant focused attention in renewed efforts to capture the most consequential features of ECE environments. This study seeks to identify specific, observable teacher behaviors that carry the potential to either promote or hinder the development of self-regulation across the pre-k year. We further ask if such behaviors predict variation in self-regulation over and above the influence of more general ratings of the classroom climate.
To address these aims, we used data collected on 1,120 4-year old children across multiple pre-k contexts (i.e. Public pre-K, Educare and Head Start) in Tulsa, Oklahoma as part of the School Experiences and Early Development (SEED) study. Through a series of lagged OLS regression models we first assessed the contribution of the CLASS scales of emotional support and classroom management to change over the pre-k year across five teacher-rated, observer-rated, and directly assessed self-regulation outcomes. We then examined the independent contribution of specific teacher behaviors that carry the potential to either promote or hinder the development of self-regulation, specifically ratings of positive supports for peer interaction and counts of behavior disapprovals and of punitive (“red flag”) responses to children’s behavior. We observed that children in classrooms with a teacher who relied extensively on behavior disapprovals or displayed punitive responses to children’s behavior (e.g., yelling, ignoring a child in need) experienced declines across multiple modes and dimensions of self-regulation across the pre-K year (Table 1). Further, we observed that such teacher behaviors were particularly harmful for those with the lowest incoming behavior regulation skills (Figure 1). We found that neither the CLASS scales nor ratings of peer scaffolding predicted change in self-regulation outcomes.
These findings are reminiscent of Dozier’s work highlighting parents’ role as co-regulators of their young children’s behavior and the undermining influence of “frightening” parent behaviors (Bernard, Hostinar, & Dozier, 2015). The current findings extend this evidence to pre-k providers, including those who constitute the highly educated teaching workforce in Tulsa’s pre-K and Head Start programs. The major implication for efforts to capture pre-k quality ingredients with significant developmental consequences is to highlight the need to attend to teachers’ specific behavioral responses towards the young children in their care, including those that are problematic, alongside broader ratings of the classroom climate.

Group Authors

The Tulsa SEED Study Team

Authors

• Deborah A Phillips, Georgetown University
  Presenting Author

• Anna D. Johnson, Georgetown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jane Hutchison, Georgetown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anne Martin, Georgetown University
  Non-Presenting Author

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