Do Learning Behaviors Mediate the Association Between Parent-Reported Peer Play Skills and Academic Outcomes?

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

At kindergarten entry, children from low-income families are almost a year behind in their language and literacy skills compared with their higher-income peers (Bernstein, West, Newsham, & Reid, 2014). Children living in poverty are disproportionately also from ethnic minority backgrounds, with 64% of African American families and 61% of Hispanic families currently living in poverty (Koball & Jiang, 2018). A strength-based perspective seeks to identify within-child factors in naturally occurring contexts, such as the home setting, that support positive developmental and learning outcomes for children. These include factors such as positive peer relationships and play skills during preschool as a strength to support learning (Coolahan, Fantuzzo, Mendez, & McDermott, 2000; Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2012). Greater interactive play at home and lower disruptive and disconnected play have been found to be positively associated with positive learning behaviors and higher receptive vocabulary scores (Fantuzzo & McWayne, 2002; Mendez & Fogle, 2002). Additionally, children with greater positive interactive play skills in preschool were positively associated with mathematics achievement in third grade (Sekino, 2006). Despite the importance of peer play skills in the home setting, few studies have examined the relationship between parent reported peer play skills and academic outcomes in diverse samples of preschool children living in poverty, and even fewer studies have investigated underlying mechanisms that could be a driving this relationship, such as children’s learning behaviors in the classroom. To address this gap, the purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between parent reported peer play and academic outcomes at the end of the preschool year, and the extent to which children’s learning behaviors in the classroom mediate this relationship.
Participants in the study included 686 preschool children across 53 classrooms, enrolled in a large, urban Head Start program in the Southeastern United States. The sample included children ranging in age from 34 to 66 months (M = 47.89, SD = 6.88), 51% boys with an ethnic composition of 43% African American, 46% Hispanic, 6% Caucasian, and 5% reported another race. The Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale Parent version (PIPPS-P; Fantuzzo, Mendez, & Tighe, 1998) was used to assess children’s interactive, disruptive, and disconnected peer play. Academic readiness skills were assessed using the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement (W-J III; Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) and learning behaviors were assessed using the Preschool Learning Behaviors Scale (PLBS; McDermott, Leigh, & Perry, 2002).
Bivariate correlations were used to examine whether the three PIPPS dimensions related to the learning and academic outcomes. Findings suggest that the negative association between disruptive play behaviors in the home and language/literacy skills was partially mediated by learning behaviors (Figure 1) and the negative relationship between disruptive play behaviors and mathematics skills was fully mediated by learning behaviors (Figure 2).
Implications of this study include identifying within-child factors to promote learning in the classroom to continue to have a strength-based approach, as well as building home-school partnerships between teachers and parents to encourage communication about children’s strengths in these settings.

Authors

• Jhonelle Bailey, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca J. Bulotsky Shearer, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Andjela Vulovic, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author