Learning-related behaviors and literacy achievement in elementary school-aged children☆
Introduction
In this era of accountability, educators are being asked to increase students’ academic achievement and to reduce the socioeconomic and racial achievement gap. The federal No Child Left Behind law does not require student testing until third grade, but teachers in the early elementary grades are being pressured to emphasize the literacy and math skills that will ultimately be tested (Miller & Almon, 2009). Because the achievement gap exists when children enter school (Stipek & Ryan, 1997), districts and states are also broadening access to preschool as a strategy for improving children's academic success in school (Barnett, Epstein, Friedman, Stevenson Boyd, & Hustedt, 2008).
Evidence for the benefits of preschool education is strong now (see reviews by Barnett, 1995, Farran, 2000), but controversy continues about which dimensions of children's development should be emphasized. While policy makers focus on academic achievement, early childhood educators complain, along with some early elementary school grade teachers, that skills and behaviors on other dimensions are also important, both in their own right and because they contribute to academic success (Stipek, 2006a, Stipek, 2006b).
Empirical evidence on the behaviors in early childhood that contribute to learning can be used to guide decisions about which dimensions of children's development deserve special attention in efforts to improve achievement. The current study examines learning-related behaviors, such as working independently, seeking challenges, and accepting responsibility—what teachers and parents might refer to as good work habits.
The learning-related behaviors examined in this study are connected to a large array of behaviors and cognitive processing skills under the rubric of self-regulation. There has been a proliferation of constructs and measures related to self-regulation in recent years, in part because of evidence connecting various aspects of self-regulation to academic performance. The constructs and measures can be categorized, admittedly somewhat arbitrarily, into three large groups. The first is emotional self-regulation (e.g., Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004), sometimes referred to as “hot,” affectively mediated, self-regulation skills. The second is cognitive processing skills, sometimes referred to as “cold” cognitively mediated self-regulation skills (Ponitz et al., 2008), such as meta-cognition (Brown, 1987), executive functions (e.g., Posner & Rothbart, 2007), and effortful and inhibitory control (Blair, 2003, Happaney et al., 2004, McClelland et al., 2007). The third is classroom behavior, such as sitting still, working independently, and listening to the teacher (McClelland, Morrison, & Holmes, 2000). These behaviors are sometimes combined in studies with items assessing academic social skills or social responsibility, such as cooperation and conformity to rules (e.g., McClelland and Morrison, 2003, Wentzel, 1991).
While conceptual distinctions can be made, these various aspects of self-regulation are no doubt interconnected. For example, presumably cognitive processing skills, which are typically assessed in laboratory settings, contribute to behaviors children manifest in the classroom, such as paying attention and completing tasks without becoming distracted. Few studies have examined the association between performance on laboratory tasks and classroom behavior directly. One exception is a recent study by Ponitz et al. (2008), which found significant associations between young children's (age 3–6 years) performance on the “Touch your Toes!” task (presumed to tap attention and working memory) and teachers’ ratings of classroom behavior (e.g., complying with adult directions, observing rules, and completing tasks).
Although the interconnections among the self-regulation constructs are not well known, evidence suggests that some of the various measures of self-regulation are associated with academic achievement (Blair, 2002, Bull and Scerif, 2001, McClelland et al., 2006, McClelland et al., 2007, Matthews et al., 2009, NICHHDECCRN, 2003). We chose to study behaviors that can be directly observed in classrooms and that have ecological validity for teachers. We wanted to assess behaviors that teachers believe are important (Foulks and Morrow, 1989, Lewit and Baker, 1995) and often lacking (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000), and that might be amenable to improvement by teacher interventions in the regular classroom context. Classroom behavior was also selected because the study spans the elementary school years, and most laboratory measures are only appropriate for children in preschool and the early elementary grades. We focused on literacy achievement as the measure of academic success because it is critical to learning in all subject areas and it is a primary focus in the early grades of school.
Although a number of studies have shown that learning-related behavior predicts academic achievement, the direction of causality has not been tested directly. It is possible that the causal direction is in the opposite direction, with achievement influencing learning-related behavior, or more likely, the relationship is reciprocal. There is consistent evidence in the motivation literature that success and the ensuing feelings of pride and self-confidence promote greater motivation and effort to learn (Mac Iver, Stipek, & Daniels, 1991; see Stipek, 2002, for a review). Also, children who perform relatively well academically are presumably reinforced with high grades and social approval for learning-related behaviors, such as seeking challenge and working independently, and these behaviors may increase as a consequence. In brief, academic success may reinforce good behaviors, which in turn produce further academic success. Academic success and the accompanying reinforcing behaviors of teachers toward students who perform well might also foster better relationships between students and their teachers, and thus a desire to please their teacher by behaving in ways that conform to expectations.
If high academic achievement reinforces and enhances productive learning-related behaviors, we would expect academic achievement in one grade to predict learning-related behavior at a later grade with previous learning-related behavior held constant. If the causal relationship is reciprocal, predictions should be significant in both directions, with learning-related behavior predicting later achievement, and achievement predicting later learning-related behavior.
The current study is longitudinal, with children entering the study in kindergarten or first grade, and then being re-assessed in third- and again in fifth grade. Mostly minority children, all from low-income families, are included in the study because these children are most at-risk of school failure (Lee, 2002, Lee and Burkam, 2002).
The three time points allowed us to assess the possibility that the direction of the relationship between learning-related behavior and literacy skills is different for early and later grades, another issue that has not been previously addressed. Consistent with previous findings we expected children who exhibited good learning-related behaviors at the beginning of elementary school to learn more and thus achieve literacy skills at a faster rate than children who began school with poor learning-related behaviors. By third grade children have had many opportunities for good academic behavior to be reinforced by teachers. We reasoned, therefore, that the direction of the relationship between learning-related behavior and literacy skills may change, or at least become more reciprocal in the later grades. The association was therefore examined separately for children as they moved from kindergarten or first grade to third grade and from third grade to fifth grade. Direct comparisons of the associations between learning-related behavior and achievement at different grades have not been made in previous studies.
Next we discuss previous findings on associations between academic achievement and classroom behaviors that are similar to what we refer to as learning-related behavior.
Several studies have found significant contemporaneous associations between young children's learning-related behavior and academic performance. Normandeau and Guay (1998) reported that first graders’ “cognitive self-control” (the ability to plan, evaluate and regulate problem-solving activities, attend to tasks, persist, and resist distraction) was associated with their academic achievement, net of their intellectual skills assessed in kindergarten. Howse, Lange, Farran, and Boyles (2003) found that teachers’ ratings of kindergarteners’ (but not second graders’) motivation (e.g., “is a self-starter;” “likes to do challenging work”) predicted concurrent reading achievement with receptive vocabulary (but not previous reading achievement) held constant. And Ladd, Kochenderfer, and Coleman (1996) found that teachers’ ratings of children's engagement and independence (e.g., “seeks challenges,” “works independently”) predicted their academic progress and performance in kindergarten.
In a longitudinal study of children from kindergarten through second grade conducted by McClelland et al. (2000), teachers’ ratings of kindergarten children's work-related skills (compliance with work instructions, memory for instructions, and completion of games and activities) were significantly associated with children's academic performance in kindergarten, controlling for IQ. Work-related skills in kindergarten also predicted academic performance at the end of second grade, with kindergarten academic scores controlled. In a more recent study, McClelland et al. (2006) found that learning-related behavior in kindergarten predicted reading and mathematics scores in sixth grade and growth in reading and math between kindergarten and second grade, but not between second and sixth grade. The measure they used was very broad, including social interaction and participation in play activities as well as task behavior (e.g., working independently and organizing work products). Matthews et al. (2009) report that classroom self-regulation (e.g., completes tasks successfully) in the fall of kindergarten predicted growth in math skills over the academic year. Green and Francis (1988) found that learning style (e.g., settles down well at an activity that needs concentration, willing to try on his/her own, copes with something new without getting nervous or upset) in 5- and 6-year-olds predicted reading scores four years later, when children were 9 and 10 years old. The study did not, however, hold constant previous reading scores.
Only a few studies report group differences in learning-related behaviors. The McClelland et al. (2000) study assessed associations at the beginning of kindergarten between work-related skills and a variety of child and family variables. They found that children rated low on work-related behaviors were more likely than children with medium or high ratings to be Black and to have parents with relatively low education and occupational status. Connell and Prinz (2002) similarly reported that ethnic minority children had lower behavior regulation, but the effects disappeared when social class was controlled. McClelland et al. (2006) similarly found that kindergarten children rated low on learning-related skills had relatively poorly educated mothers. Analyses of the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) likewise revealed that kindergarten children from families with multiple risks (parents who have not completed high school, low-income or welfare-dependent, single-parents, speak a language other than English) were less likely to be rated as eager to learn and attentive than children from families with one or no risks (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001). In their study of children in kindergarten through second grade, Howse et al. (2003) did not find a significant difference in teachers’ ratings of at-risk (low-income) and middle-class children's motivation (e.g., self-initiation, preference for challenge). But the at-risk and not-at-risk children came from different schools, and teachers may have used different standards to rate children.
Given the limited range of family income (and concomitantly parent education) of children in the present study, we expected income effects to be modest. But previous studies suggest that children who are in the most impoverished circumstances have more negative outcomes than children who are also living below the federal poverty line but relatively better off (Dearing et al., 2006, McLeod and Shanahan, 1996). If income effects were found, we expected the children from the lowest-income families in our low-income sample to be rated lower on learning-related behavior.
Several studies have reported gender differences in children's task-related behavior. Ponitz et al. (2008) report that 3–6-year-old girls performed better on their laboratory task assessing behavioral self-regulation than boys. Matthews et al. (2009) report a gender difference favoring girls for both teacher ratings and a direct measure of self-regulation. Keogh (1994) studied 360 children who were in four different school placements—general elementary school, general preschool, special education elementary school, and special education preschool. Teachers rated girls higher than boys on a measure of task orientation (“school-appropriate behaviors”), which included items such as: able to begin and complete classroom tasks, alert and attentive to classroom proceedings, completes work on time, eager, enthusiastic, enjoys school work, follows directions, and willingly participates in classroom activities. Girls were also rated as more eager to learn, attentive in class, and persistent in completing tasks by kindergarten teachers in the ECLS study (National Center for Education Statistics, 2001), as having better work-related skills in the McClelland et al. (2000) study, and as more self-directed in a study by Birch and Ladd (1997). Fantuzzo, Bulotsky-Shearer, Fusco, and McWayne (2005) did not find gender differences in ratings of Head Start children's willingness to take on and complete tasks, but this study was done at the preschool level, when expectations for task completion might have been less clear. If gender differences in learning-related behavior were found in the present study, we expected them to favor girls.
There is a fair amount of evidence demonstrating that learning-related behaviors are associated with contemporaneous academic achievement, and some evidence that these behaviors in the early grades of school predict later academic achievement. Although most researchers assume that children's behaviors cause academic achievement, the opposite and reciprocal causal directions have not been assessed.
To examine the directionality of the association between learning-related behavior and achievement in the current study we assessed the degree to which learning-related behavior predicted literacy achievement in a later grade, controlling for previous literacy achievement, and the degree to which literacy achievement predicted later learning-related behavior, controlling for previous learning-related behavior. Because we had assessed children on both variables at three points in time, we were able to assess the nature of the associations within two separate time spans.
In the few studies that have reported gender or social class differences in learning-related behavior, boys and children from economically disadvantaged or high-risk homes were rated relatively low in work-related skills. We accordingly predicted relatively low learning-related behavior ratings for boys and the most disadvantaged children.
Section snippets
Overview
The data used in this study are from a longitudinal, multi-state effort to track development in low-income children through elementary school. The children included in the present study had been enrolled in a previous study of low-income children; their selection in the original study was based only on having incomes (based on needs/income ratio) below the federally established poverty line. All of the children in the original study who could be found and whose parents consented were included
Results
The primary research question concerned the direction of effects between learning-related behavior and literacy skills. Does learning-related behavior promote better literacy learning or does relatively good mastery of literacy skills, and the presumed concomitant rewards for good behavior, promote more learning-related behavior, or is the relationship reciprocal?
Discussion
This study builds on prior research finding associations between self-regulation and children's learning (e.g., Blair, 2002, Bull and Scerif, 2001, Green and Francis, 1988, McClelland et al., 2006, McClelland et al., 2007, NICHHDECCRN, 2003). The present study is different from most previous studies because it focused exclusively on children living in poverty. It also goes beyond previous studies by assessing evidence related to alternative causal directions. We assessed evidence for the
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The data analyses for the present study were funded by a grant from the Foundation for Child Development.