The Relationship of Family Variables to Head Start Children's Preacademic Competence

This study was conducted with a sample of 93 Head Start children and their mothers. It examined the contribution of family variables (i.e., parenting style, home literacy activities, maternal school involvement, and maternal expectations) to children's preacademic competence as defined by four criteria: (a) performance on a standardized achievement battery; (b) teachers' ratings of children's cognitive competence; (c) children's self-ratings of competence; and (d) maternal reports of children's early school adjustment. In exploring these relationships the study controlled for the influence of variables (i.e., child and maternal cognitive variables, child sex, as well as risk due to daily stress) that have been suggested to influence directly, or indirectly, maternal involvement and child competence. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that educational expectations, home literacy variables, and school involvement were predictive of children's competence even after accounting for the effects of maternal education, child IQ, and daily stress. Specifically, maternal educational expectations were predictive of preacademic achievement and teacher-rated competence. Maternal engagement in educational activities at home was predictive of children's self-efficacy beliefs and school adjustment. Maternal school involvement was also predictive of school adjustment.     

Is Effective Teaching Stable?

The authors examined the ecological validity of using observation-based scores to evaluate individual teachers’ effectiveness, mirroring their use by school administrators. Using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, the authors asked (a) how similar are teachers’ emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support scores from each other; and (b) to what extent are these scores stable from day-to-day? Using a time-series, single-case methodology, the authors examined patterns of eight Kindergarten teachers’ performance in all lessons within a 4–5 week, thematically coherent science unit. Thus, the opportunity for identifying within-teacher stability was maximized. Teachers' instructional quality was significantly less effective than their emotional supportiveness and classroom organization. Furthermore, teachers’ effectiveness ratings varied markedly from one lesson to the next, for all three dimensions.     

The Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI) in Kindergarten: An Evaluation of the Stability of the MQI Using Generalizability Theory

Research Findings: We evaluated the score stability of the Mathematical Quality of Instruction (MQI), an observational measure of mathematics instruction. Three raters each scored, independently, 100 video-recorded lessons taught by 20 kindergarten teachers in the spring. Using generalizability theory analyses, we decomposed the MQI’s score stability into potential sources of variation (teachers, lessons, raters, and their interactions). The 13-item (3-domain) Ambitious Mathematics Instruction scale and the Whole Lesson scale each explained about one third of the variance attributed to differences in the main construct of interest (teachers’ instructional strategies). The MQI’s Errors and Imprecision scale was not relevant at the kindergarten level; there were virtually no errors and/or ambiguities observed across the 100 mathematics lessons. In a series of decision studies, we examined improvements in reliability with combinations of up to 6 raters and 8 lessons. Only the Richness of Mathematics domain scores and the Whole Lesson scores achieved acceptable reliabilities. Practice or Policy: The findings have important implications for the use of observation measures to document teachers’ mathematics practices in the early years of school.     

How do children cope with school failure? A study of social/emotional factors related to children's coping strategies

This study examined the coping strategies employed by 187 fourth and fifth graders in an encounter with an academic failure experience in school. Resources considered in this study included motivational orientation to perform well in the stressful encounter, the experience of challenge or threat/harm emotions, attributions to failure, beliefs about competence, event familiarity, and socioeconomic status. Based on their responses to the Academic Coping Inventory children were assigned to one of four coping groups: positive, denial, projection, and self-blame. Results indicated that positive copers were more likely to have an intrinsic orientation to success, to experience less negative emotions following failure, to attribute failure to unstable rather than stable factors, and to have higher perceptions of competence. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.