Teacher attunement: Supporting early elementary students’ social integration and status

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Highlights

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    Teachers’ broad attunement to peer group memberships was modest.

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    Teachers’ precise attunement was even more limited.

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    Students were more popular when teachers’ had broad attunement in the fall.

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    Students were more integrated when teachers had a more precise attunement in fall.

Abstract

This study examined the longitudinal association between teachers' broad attunement to students’ peer group memberships and students’ social centrality and status in early elementary classrooms in a sample of 276 first – third graders and 20 teachers. We further examined the value added when considering teachers' precise attunement to students’ individual peer group affiliates. Social cognitive mapping (SCM) procedures were used to generate and compare students’ and teachers’ reports of peer groups to assess teacher attunement and students’ centrality; peer nominations assessed students’ social preference and popularity. Results indicated early elementary teachers’ attunement is limited. Findings substantiated the value in distinguishing between teachers' broad and precise attunement, indicating that teachers’ broad attunement to peer group memberships is important for popularity, whereas precise attunement to individual students' affiliates matters for centrality. Implications for the contribution of teacher attunement to students’ centrality and status are discussed in relation to teachers’ invisible hand.

Section snippets

Classroom peer ecologies and student adjustment

Classroom peer ecologies have two primary relational systems: a system of peer groups, which represent the informal groups of children who regularly and voluntarily interact with one another (Cairns & Cairns, 1994), and a social status system that reflects individual students’ social standing within the larger classroom of students (Rodkin & Ryan, 2012). Specific relationships within these classroom peer ecology systems are foundational to students’ school success. As a marker of social

Broad and precise attunement to peer group affiliations

Although teachers may be attuned to numerous relationships within the classroom peer ecology, a number of researchers have investigated teachers’ attunement to the peer group system of their classrooms. Studies of elementary and middle school teachers suggest that, on average, teachers accurately identify approximately 40% of the membership of peer groups identified by students, and that this attunement improves as the school year progresses (Gest, 2006, Hamm et al., 2011, Pearl et al., 2007).

Teacher attunement and students’ centrality and social status in the peer ecology

Skinner and Belmont (1993) highlighted teachers’ attunement to their students as a dimension of teacher involvement that promotes successful school adjustment. The potential for teachers’ attunement to aspects of students’ peer relationships to benefit students’ social adjustment, specifically, is conceptualized by the “invisible hand” metaphor (Farmer et al., 2011, p. 267), which reflects the idea that in the course of everyday classroom activities and routines, teachers manage classroom

Method

Data for this study are drawn from a larger, longitudinal research intervention study, Project X (funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences) aimed at raising early elementary school teachers’ awareness of the developmental implications of classroom social dynamics for students’ schooling adjustment. Preliminary multilevel analyses conducted to test for intervention versus control school differences in teacher attunement, as well as for intervention effects on

Sample

Data associated with a single academic year, from the fall 2006 (Time 1) and spring 2007 (Time 2), were analyzed. Complete peer group data were available at both time points from 20 teachers and their consented students.

Procedures

Informed consent was obtained from students’ parents or legal guardians via letters sent home in both English and Spanish, where appropriate. Consented participants in the first grade were individually interviewed in a private setting in the school; second and third graders were administered the surveys in a group format, using alternating seats at predetermined lunch tables in the cafeteria. A trained administrator read the instructions for completing the survey aloud, while trained graduate

Study measures

Multi-method and multi-informant data are included in the present study. Peer nominations were used to obtain participating students’ social integration and status within the peer ecology; information on students’ peer group memberships was obtained from student and teacher reports.

Centrality

Social integration into the peer group system was operationalized as peer group centrality. Centrality was derived following SCM procedures (Cairns et al., 1996). First, a series of nomination scores were calculated including individual, group, and network nomination scores. Individual nomination scores were calculated for participants as the total number of times they were named to any peer group, reflecting the total number of nominations each student received. Group nomination scores were

Analytic plan

Classrooms are social contexts in which students’ social integration and status within the peer group system develop. Features of the classroom peer group ecology are not independent phenomenon and represent a three-level nested data structure that can vary within and between peer groups and teachers. That is, differences in peer groups (Level 2) and teacher practices (Level 3) can create variation within and between peer groups and classroom contexts that support or inhibit the development of

Descriptive analyses

Descriptive statistics for fall teacher attunement and for the outcomes in the spring along with the correlations among these variables are shown in Table 1. The mean score for teachers’ broad attunement to peer group was .37 (SD = .33) in the fall. This score signifies that on average, teachers accurately identified 37% of the membership of classroom peer groups identified by students. In the spring, this score was .41 (SD = .35), indicating that teachers accurately identified 41% of the

Teachers’ broad and precise attunement, and student popularity

A series of HGLM models were estimated to examine associations among the two types of teacher attunement in the fall and student popularity in the spring. Parameter estimates for this analysis are reported in Table 2. Results of the unconditional model indicated that there was significant between-peer group variance in peer nominations as popular, χ2 (63) = 212.37, p < .001. Interpretation of the ICC calculated from variance components at Level 2 indicated that 12% of the variance in students’

Teachers’ broad and precise attunement, and student centrality

A series of HLM models were estimated to test associations among the two types of teacher attunement in the fall, and students’ centrality in the spring. Table 3 contains the parameter estimates for these models. Results of the unconditional model indicated that there was significant between-peer group variance in students’ social centrality, χ2 (57) = 165.63, p < .001. Calculation of the ICC for social centrality indicated that 38% of the variance in students’ centrality scores was between peer

Teachers’ broad and precise attunement, and student social preference

A series of HLM models were estimated to test the associations among teacher attunement in the fall and students’ social preference scores in the spring. Table 4 contains the parameter estimates for the longitudinal models for social preference.

First, an unconditional model was estimated, which indicated that there was significant variance in social preference scores between peer groups, χ2 (63) = 109.85, p < .00. The ICC for social preference indicated that 13.8% of the variance in social

Summary of findings

The findings support the hypotheses that teacher attunement early in the school year is related to students’ social centrality and status at the end of the school year. Specifically, the broad type of teacher attunement, accuracy in identifying students’ peer group membership in the fall, was positively and significantly associated with students’ popularity in the spring after accounting for popularity in the fall and students’ demographic characteristics. However, added benefits to students’

Discussion

This study used a short-term longitudinal design to examine the potential benefits of teachers’ broad attunement to students’ peer group membership, and the possible benefits from considering a more precise type of teachers’ attunement to students’ individual peer group affiliates, to students’ social centrality and status in the early elementary grades. We center our discussion on two main points from the findings. First, teachers’ attunement to students’ peer group memberships is incomplete

Early elementary teachers’ attunement

In the extant literature, scholars have focused on teachers’ broad attunement to the peer groups of their classrooms. We determined teachers’ broad attunement to peer groups in the present study, finding that similar to the results of prior studies (i.e., Gest, 2006, Neal et al., 2011), the teachers in the present study accurately identified 37% of the membership of peer groups in the fall, and 41% of the membership of peer groups in the spring. We extended this line of research to attunement

Teacher attunement and students’ social integration and status

In the present study, we focused on three specific relationships within the classroom peer ecology to reflect students’ social integration and status with classmates: centrality, social preference, and popularity. We found that dimensions of students’ peer relationships were associated with different types of attunement. In our analyses, we modeled the within and between peer group variance of students’ social integration and status, which enabled an empirical examination of the unique

Implications for intervention

The findings from our study are aligned with results from previous findings that early elementary teachers’ broad attunement to students’ peer group memberships is modest (Gest, 2006, Neal et al., 2011). Extending research focused on teachers’ broad attunement, the present study addressed teachers’ precise attunement to individual students’ peer affiliates. Results indicated that elementary teachers’ precise attunement is even more limited than their broad-based understanding of students’ peer

Study limitations

Despite a number of strengths, including the short-term longitudinal design and the sample size, the present study involves a few limitations. A limitation is that the present study focused on teachers’ attunement, not on the teaching processes that may link attunement to children’s peer relationships. As such, the mechanisms through which teacher attunement shapes students’ social integration and status in the class peer ecology are inferred. Teaching practices, such as grouping strategies and

Acknowledgements

The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant H324C040230 to The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education.

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