Project Activities
The researchers collected data from two cohorts of participants, each lasting one preschool year. Data collection included direct child assessments in the fall and spring of the school year, classroom observations (fall and spring), as well as brief teacher and parent surveys. A subset of teachers participated in semi-structured interviews at the end of the school year. The researchers conducted quantitative and qualitative data analyses to answer the research questions and disseminated study findings about the associations between classroom practices and processes and child outcomes.
Structured Abstract
Setting
This study took place in center-based preschool programs in urban and suburban sites throughout Ohio.
Sample
The sample for the quantitative study included 734 children across 104 classrooms from a variety of center-based settings, including publicly funded programs, Head Start centers, and private child care centers. The qualitative portion of the study involved interviews with 40 teachers who participated in the quantitative portion of our study.
The malleable factors included classroom age composition, instructional content, differentiation, grouping strategies, and other aspects of teacher practices in mixed age classrooms. The practices represented malleable factors that could result in improvements in children's school success.
Research design and methods
The research team used a two-cohort design to collect data from children, classrooms, and teachers. They recruited 36 classrooms in the first cohort and 68 classrooms in the second cohort, for a total sample of 104 classrooms. Both cohorts participated for one academic year. For each cohort, the team collected child-level data in fall and spring of the school year to examine gains in academic skills and changes in behavior and executive function skills across the school year. They also conducted direct classroom observations during the winter. Additionally, teachers completed questionnaires in the fall and spring. As part of this project, the team also conducted interviews with 40 teachers who participated in the quantitative portion of the study to better understand their perspectives and experiences in mixed-age settings.
Control condition
Due to the exploratory nature of the research design, there was no control condition.
Key measures
Primary variables measured for this study included classroom age composition, classroom-level processes (e.g., instructional content, differentiation, grouping strategies, and student experiences), and children's early learning (i.e., literacy, language, and math), social behavioral development (i.e., behavior problems, social competence, and self-regulation), and executive function (i.e., inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility). Primary measures of student outcomes included direct assessments using the Woodcock Johnson III and the Early Years Toolkit, and teacher reports from the Teacher-Child Rating Scale. The research team also measured classroom processes with a combination of teacher report and classroom observations. Observational measures include the Classroom Assessment Scoring System and the Classroom Observation System.
Data analytic strategy
For the quantitative data, the team used multilevel modeling to account for the nesting of children within their classrooms and adjusted for a full set of child-, family-, and, classroom-level covariates, including lagged dependent variables. Missing data were addressed with multiple imputation. To test for moderation, they estimated interaction models within a multilevel framework (e.g., indicator of age composition and student level age). To test for mediation, they used the product-of-coefficients approach with bootstrapped standard errors. For the qualitative data, they coded transcripts to answer the research questions regarding classroom age composition patterns, teacher practices, and teacher perspectives on the benefits and challenges of mixed-age settings.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Products and publications
Researchers will produce preliminary evidence of potentially promising teacher and classroom practices and processes that are associated with children's school readiness skills. They will produce peer-reviewed publications, policy briefs, and presentations to share the study findings with researchers and practitioners.
Publications:
ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.
Purtell, K. M., Ansari, A., Yang, Q., & Bartholomew, C. P. (2021, March). The role of preschool peers in children's language development. In Seminars in Speech and Language (Vol. 42, No. 02, pp. 088-100). Thieme Medical Publishers, Inc..
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
