Paths of effects of early childhood intervention on educational attainment and delinquency: a confirmatory analysis of the Chicago Child-Parent Centers

This study investigated the contributions of 5 mechanisms to the effects of preschool participation in the Child-Parent Centers for 1,404 low-income children in the Chicago Longitudinal Study. Based on a matched-group design, preschool participation was associated with significantly higher rates of educational attainment and lower rates of juvenile arrest. LISREL analysis revealed that the primary mediators of effects for both outcomes were attendance in high-quality elementary schools and lower mobility (school support hypothesis), literacy skills in kindergarten and avoidance of grade retention (cognitive advantage hypothesis), and parent involvement in school and avoidance of child maltreatment (family support hypothesis). The model accounted for 58% and 79% of the preschool links with school completion and juvenile arrest, respectively. The maintenance early intervention effects are influenced by many alterable factors.     

Cognitive and Family-Support Mediators of Preschool Effectiveness: A Confirmatory Analysis

Investigated in this study were the mediators of the effects of preschool intervention on children's school achievement in sixth grade. A confirmatory structural model developed in a previous study of third graders was tested with 360 low-income, mostly black children who were available at the 3-year follow-up. The model incorporated cognitive readiness at kindergarten entry and parent involvement in school (rated by teachers and parents) as primary mediators of preschool effectiveness. In sixth grade (age 12), preschool participation at ages 3 or 4 was significantly associated with higher reading achievement, higher math achievement, and with lower incidence of grade retention. Cognitive readiness and parent involvement in school significantly mediated the estimated effects of preschool participation on school achievement and grade retention 7 years postprogram. Teacher ratings of school adjustment, school mobility, and grade retention also contributed to the transmission of effects. This integrated model fit the data better than several alternative models, including those based on the cognitive-advantage and family-support hypotheses.     

Urban Zimbabwean mothers' choices and perceptions of care for young children

The opportunity for Black Zimbabwean children to attend preschool became widespread only after about 1987. The present study investigated the basis on which families select preschools and their perceptions of what constitutes quality preschool care. Of particular interest was whether school choice patterns are based on parent-centered goals (e.g., authority, prestige, convenience) or child-centered factors (e.g., safety, accelerated educational preparation, social development). Interviews were conducted with 51 working mothers of children ages 3-5 years in urban Zimbabwe (Harare and Bulawayo), 39 (77%) of whom were attending full-day preschool at the time of the survey. Overall, the four most frequently cited attributes of quality preschool care were good food or a balanced diet, qualified teachers, hygiene or cleanliness, and the physical structure. Mothers in the lowest income group placed greatest emphasis on good food, toys, facility, and school preparation, while higher-income mothers tended to prioritize hygiene and loving teachers. Preschool was viewed as part of the formal education process rather than as a form of child care. Female domestics or relatives were identified as the primary child care providers, even when the child was in preschool all day. Mothers expressed a strong preference for a child-centered approach to preschool education. Deliberate (social mobility), humanistic, and practical goals accounted for 80% of parental goal types. In general, mothers were most satisfied with preschool programs when they perceived a congruence between home and school in terms of their child's cultural development.     

幼儿教师的社会地位

参照有关幼儿教师社会地位的研究,结合调研所获得的一手材料,本研究发现,当前幼儿教师的经济收入偏低,其政治、专业性、学术性权力有限,且得不到有效保障,职业声望也一般。综合来看,幼儿教师的社会地位在整个社会职业结构体系中处于偏低的位置。     

The relations among young children's peer-reported trustworthiness, inhibitory control, and preschool adjustment

Sixty-five (38 male and 27 female) preschool children (mean age = 5 years 1 month) completed measures of peers’ trustworthiness (promise keeping and secret keeping). Teachers rated the preschool children's inhibitory control, trustworthiness, and preschool adjustment. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) yielded support for the hypothesized model. The expected positive paths were found from (1) gender to preschool adjustment and inhibitory control, (2) age to peer-reported trustworthiness, (3) peer-reported trustworthiness to preschool adjustment, (4) inhibitory control to peer-reported trustworthiness, and (5) inhibitory control to preschool adjustment. The findings confirmed the hypothesized development of trustworthiness with age and girls’ advantage over boys in inhibitory control and preschool adjustment. The findings supported the hypotheses that trustworthiness is associated with preschool adjustment and mediates, in part, the relation between inhibitory control and preschool adjustment.     

Mediated Effects of Preschool Intervention

Consistent evidence that the effect of preschool intervention on cognitive achievement fades with the passage of time has resulted in a search for mediators of preschool. This study investigated factors that play a role in mediating the effects of a government funded Child–Parent Center preschool program. The school adjustment of 266 low-income, mostly Black preschool children and of 125 comparison group children were matched on neighborhood characteristics and were traced from kindergarten through the third year of school (1986–1989). Data were collected from children, parents, and teachers on entering kindergarten cognitive readiness, teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, parental involvement at home and in school, grade retention, assignment to special education, school mobility and cognitive achievement in reading and mathematics. Results of a latent-factor structural model indicated that preschool influenced later achievement and retention indirectly rather than directly. Four major pathways through which preschool exerted its effect included (1) cognitive readiness, (2) cognitive readiness and teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, (3) teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, and (4) parent involvement and school mobility. Cognitive readiness, teacher ratings, and parent involvement also transmitted effects to grade retention. That preschool's influence on later outcomes is largely indirect indicates its dependency on intervening factors in exerting effects. These intervening factors appear to be critical in promoting school success of children at risk.     

Mediated Effects of Preschool Intervention

Consistent evidence that the effect of preschool intervention on cognitive achievement fades with the passage of time has resulted in a search for mediators of preschool. This study investigated factors that play a role in mediating the effects of a government funded Child-Parent Center preschool program. The school adjustment of 266 low-income, mostly Black preschool children and of 125 comparison group children were matched on neighborhood characteristics and were traced from kindergarten through the third year of school (1986-1989). Data were collected from children, parents, and teachers on entering kindergarten cognitive readiness, teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, parental involvement at home and in school, grade retention, assignment to special education, school mobility and cognitive achievement in reading and mathematics. Results of a latent-factor structural model indicated that preschool influenced later achievement and retention indirectly rather than directly. Four major pathways through which preschool exerted its effect included (1) cognitive readiness, (2) cognitive readiness and teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, (3) teacher ratings of socioemotional maturity, and (4) parent involvement and school mobility. Cognitive readiness, teacher ratings, and parent involvement also transmitted effects to grade retention. That preschool's influence on later outcomes is largely indirect indicates its dependency on intervening factors in exerting effects. These intervening factors appear to be critical in promoting school success of children at risk.     

Student trust in teachers and student perceptions of safety: positive predictors of student identification with school

This study examined the effects of student trust in teacher and student perceptions of safety on identification with school. Data were collected from one large urban district in an eastern state. Participants included 5441 students in 3rd through 12th grades from 49 schools. Students responded to surveys that assessed student trust in teachers, safety and identification with school. Free and Reduced Lunch (a proxy for SES), school level and ethnicity were included as control variables. Two hypotheses guided the study. Hypothesis 1 stated that student trust, safety and identification with school would positively covary. Hypothesis 2 predicted that student trust in teachers and perceptions of safety were school properties that would individually and collectively explain differences among schools in student identification with school. Both hypotheses were confirmed. The results of the hierarchical linear model indicated that student trust in teachers and school safety accounted for 98% of the 22% of variance that exists among schools in student identification. SES, school level and ethnicity were not significant predictors of identification with school. Findings suggest that student trust in teachers and perceptions of safety may significantly contribute to student identification above the effects of SES, ethnicity and school level.     

Follow-up of a preschool epidemiological sample: cross-age continuities and predictions of later adjustment with internalizing and externalizing dimensions of behavior

The continuity of behavioral adjustment from preschool through elementary school and junior high school years was examined. 541 children aged 9-15 years from a preschool epidemiological study were relocated and behavior checklist data obtained. Analyses focused on the relationship between internalizing and externalizing behavior dimensions from the preschool to follow-up periods. It was found that preschool externalizing symptoms were positively correlated with later externalizing and internalizing symptoms in the entire sample. Preschool internalizing symptoms, however, were predictive of later internalizing symptoms only for 2-year-old girls and 5- and 6-year-old boys. Similar results were obtained for clinically disturbed preschoolers. Results are consistent with previous findings regarding the longitudinal continuity of externalizing behavior but are at odds with reports of equal or greater stability of internalizing behavior. Given the magnitude of obtained correlations, even when significant, the results support the view that discontinuity rather than continuity in behavioral adjustment from preschool to later ages is the rule. The importance of examining other mediating variables in the prediction of behavioral adjustment and the need for models of development that encompass both stability and change are discussed.     

Becoming a physician: The influence of the undergraduate experience

This study employed a national sample of college students who initially aspired to be, or later became, physicians to determine the influence of precollege characteristics, college origins, and the academic and social experience of college on the likelihood of becoming a physician. Estimates of a 14-variable causal model indicated that the major direct effects on attainment were attributable to college characteristics and the academic experience of college. Net of other causes, the selectivity/prestige of the undergraduate institution attended, collegiate academic achievement, and majoring in the physical or life sciences each had significant direct effects on becoming a physician. The direct positive influence of college quality, however, was partially counterbalanced by its negative indirect effect. Moreover, the greatest advantage in attending an elite institution accrued to those students with relatively high levels of academic performance. As academic performance declined, so did the positive effect of college quality. The effects of precollege characteristics on becoming a physician were largely indirect, mediated by the student's college experience. Net of other factors, women were no less likely than men to become physicians, but being female had a significant negative indirect effect. Conversely, secondary school achievement did not directly influence attainment but did have a large positive indirect influence.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, San Diego, February, 1987.     

Practices that support the transition to public preschool programs: Results from a National Survey

The number of children participating in public school preschool programs has steadily increased over the last two decades. While the use of specific practices to support the transition to kindergarten has received a great deal of attention, there are little data on the use of transition practices by public school preschool teachers to support children's entry into the public school preschool setting. This article presents findings from a national sample of 2434 public school preschool teachers on the use of 25 transition practices to support the transition of young children into public school preschool programs. The study represents a collaborative extension of the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) Kindergarten Transition Survey [Pianta, R. C., Cox, M. J., Taylor, L., & Early, D. (1999). Kindergarten teachers’ practices related to the transition to school: Results of a national survey. Elementary School Journal, 100(1), 71–86]. Public school preschool teachers reported using an average of 12.81 of the 25 transition practices included in the survey, with a total of 12 of the 25 transition practices reportedly in use by 70% or more of teachers responding to the survey. Findings from this study indicate that three variables – training on the use of specific transition practices, classroom composition, and school context – were related to the use of transition practices by public school preschool teachers.     

Examining the occupational aspirations of Taiwanese Aboriginal adolescents based on the developmental-contextual model of career development

In Taiwan, the occupational achievement of indigenous people has been well below that of their non-indigenous counterparts. Studies have confirmed that the occupational aspirations of adolescents significantly influence their adult career choices and achievements. Therefore, this study tested the proposed theoretical model of occupational aspirations among Taiwanese Aboriginal adolescents by utilizing the developmental-contextual model of career development as its framework. This study simultaneously examined the relationships among the distal contextual variable (social welfare resources), proximal contextual variables (parental occupational aspirations for the child, school support, and neighborhood cohesion), individual-level variable (self-concept), and occupational aspirations in the proposed model. The data were collected from a questionnaire survey of 564 Taiwanese Aboriginal senior high school students and were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results supported the proposed research model, which explained 62.6?% of the variance in occupational aspirations. The study found that social welfare resources influenced parental occupational aspirations for the child, school support, and neighborhood cohesion, which, in turn, directly and indirectly influenced occupational aspirations vis-à-vis their effects on self-concept. In turn, self-concept influenced occupational aspirations. Overall, the results confirmed that the proposed model based on the developmental-contextual model of career development was effective in explaining the development of occupational aspirations among Taiwanese Aboriginal adolescents.     

社会支持与幼儿园教师留职意向的关系:组织公平感和工作投入的序列中介效应

社会支持是幼儿园教师应对职业压力的重要心理资源。为探讨幼儿园教师社会支持与留职意向的关系以及组织公平感与工作投入在二者关系中的作用,本研究选取了宁夏回族自治区1693名幼儿园教师为研究对象,采用社会支持量表、留职意向量表、组织公平感量表和工作投入量表进行测量。结果发现幼儿园教师的留职意向总体较好;社会支持和留职意向在教龄、园所性质、园所地域上存在显著差异,其中16年及以上教龄、公立幼儿园、村镇幼儿园教师的社会支持较高,留职意向也显著较高;社会支持、组织公平感、工作投入和留职意向两两显著正相关;社会支持对留职意向有显著的正向预测作用;组织公平感和工作投入在社会支持和留职意向之间起中介作用。具体而言,社会支持通过三条路径影响幼儿园教师留职意向,一是组织公平感的单独中介作用,二是工作投入的单独中介作用,三是组织公平感和工作投入的序列中介作用。为提高幼儿园教师的留职意向,应通过学前教育立法强化制度供给,切实改善幼儿园教师的社会地位与薪资待遇;通过文化和制度建设营造公平、公开、透明的组织环境;通过在职培训支持教师加强自身心理建设,引导教师客观看待问题,形成现实合理的期待,发展积极乐观的态度,主动增加工作投入。     

Effects of college prestige on men's occupational status and income

This study assesses the effects of college social prestige and college selectivity on men's occupational status and income. The analyses are based on a national sample of men from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. College selectivity, but not college social prestige, has a significant impact on middle-aged men's income in a single year. Neither college social prestige nor selectivity, however, affect further growth in middle-aged men's income. Nor do they affect men's occupational status.     

Occupational Therapy in Preschools: A Synthesis of Current Knowledge

This paper presents a synthesis of current knowledge about occupational therapy in preschools (for 3–6 year olds) in order to provide a better understanding of this field of practice and to guide the implementation or programming of this service. In the literature, occupational therapy in preschools has been documented mainly in the USA. Results revealed that this service helped all children, with and without difficulties, to improve their skills, especially fine motor and graphomotor skills, and their participation in educational and daily living activities. Occupational therapy also had positive effects on teachers, parents and services. A service delivery model based on Response-to-Intervention or collaborative model should guide the implementation or programming of occupational therapy in preschools, with the focus on prevention/health promotion, screening and early intervention as well as school inclusion and success. Future studies are needed to determine the best intervention approaches and methods to improve children’s motor skills and self-regulation in inclusive preschool settings.     

Do preschool executive function skills explain the school readiness gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children?

We examine the extent to which executive functions (EFs), as opposed to other cognitive skills, account for socioeconomically based disparities in school readiness. Participants are 226 American children (aged 36–71 months) enrolled in either needs-based or private preschools. Children completed 6 tasks designed to measure EFs as well as assessments of general intelligence and speed of cognitive processing. Children were also assessed on math, reading, and vocabulary skills. EFs accounted for unique variance across all academic measures even when controlling for speed of processing and general intelligence and partially accounted for disparities in school readiness associated with type of preschool enrollment. When vocabulary was controlled in the model, EFs only mediated associations between type of preschool and math. Vocabulary skills accounted for associations between socioeconomic status and both math and reading achievement. General intelligence and speed of processing did not uniquely account for associations between disadvantage and school readiness.     

The persistence of preschool effects: Do subsequent classroom experiences matter?

Using rich longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort (ECLS-K), we find that children who attended preschool enter public schools with higher levels of academic skills than their peers who experienced other types of child care (effect size of .14). This study considers the circumstances under which the preschool advantage persists, that is, the types of classrooms in which students who did not attend preschool “catch up” to their counterparts who did. Specifically, we focus on two dimensions of the early school environment—class size and the level of academic instruction provided. The findings suggest that most of the preschool-related gap in academic skills at school entry is quickly eliminated for children placed in small classrooms and classrooms providing high levels of reading instruction. Conversely, the initial disparities persist for children experiencing large classes and lower levels of reading instruction. These results point out that the longer-term effects of early childhood experience partly depend on classroom experiences during at least the first years of school.     

Drug use,the transition from school to work and occupational achievement in the United States

To determine the effects of drug use on entry into the labor force and subsequent socioeconomic achievement, we estimated duration models of the time elapsed since first leaving school to the first fulltime civilian job and jobs held at ages 24–25 and 28–29. The duration models show inconsistent drug effects: women who use illicit drugs other than marijuana delay entry into the labor force while men who use alcohol daily experience a somewhat more rapid entry. Blacks and those with a lower level of educational attainment enter the labor force more slowly than non-blacks and those with higher educational levels. The more important determinants of occupational outcomes at entry and later points in the work career are the human capital variables, i.e. educational attainment and experience. Duration of time since leaving school to first job has a statistically significant and negative impact on earnings, which increases over time for men but not for women. Being black is consistently associated with higher earnings among women. Holding constant other determinants of socioeconomic achievement, such as family background factors, marital status, race, and participation in different activities and roles during high school, effects of drug use among men and women and across earnings and prestige of the job are weak and inconsistent. The only statistically significant effect is the positive impact of marijuana use on males’ earnings at age 29. The findings lead us to conclude that drug use has only minor impact on occupational achievement in early adulthood.     

A comparison of workshop training versus intensive,experiential training for improving behavior support skills in early educators

Effective behavior support is an important component of high-quality and nurturing early childhood classroom settings. At present, there are few studies that investigate the best way to train and support teachers in these strategies. The present study compared two different training approaches: (1) a workshop that included a one-day classroom-based training that introduced effective preventative and behavior support strategies followed by school year behavioral consultation support; or (2) an intensive condition that included the one-day workshop plus four days of experiential learning and practice in a preschool classroom followed by school year behavioral consultation support. Eighty-eight teachers/aides were randomly assigned to one of the two training conditions, and training occurred in August before the commencement of the school year. Results indicated that on observations of effective behavioral management and instructional learning formats, teachers in the intensive condition were improved proximally, with effects waning over time. For measures of teacher use of praise, the intensive group maintained the improved rate throughout the school year relative to the workshop group. Rates of commands and observations of classroom productivity were not different between groups. Teachers were satisfied with both approaches to training.     

Preschool teacher attachment,school readiness and risk of learning difficulties

Attachment is the emotional bond between children and their caregivers (parents or otherwise). Infants and young children usually have more than one selective attachment, and all of these attachment relationships, including those between children and teachers, have important effects on cognitive and social development. Secure attachment to a preschool teacher may help children to improve their preschool experience. Recent studies suggest that the adverse effect of inadequate preschool experiences can lead to skill deficiencies that mimic the effects of basic cognitive deficits. This study evaluates the relationships among attachment to preschool teachers, school readiness, and the risk for developing learning difficulties in preschoolers using three measures: the School Readiness 4-5 battery, the Precocious Identification of Learning Difficulties, and the Attachment Q Set. This study examined 152 preschoolers. The results showed that attachment to preschool teachers is related to linguistic development level, the psychomotor skills involved in school readiness, and learning difficulty risk.