Behavioral self-regulation and relations to emergent academic skills among children in Germany and Iceland

Abstract

The present study investigated a direct assessment of behavioral self-regulation (the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders; HTKS) and its contribution to early academic achievement among young children in Germany and Iceland. The authors examined the psychometric properties and construct validity of the HTKS, investigated gender differences in young children's behavioral self-regulation, and explored relations between the HTKS and a teacher report of behavioral self-regulation (the Child Behavior Rating Scale; CBRS) and emerging academic skills. Findings supported the construct validity of the HTKS when used with young German and Icelandic children. Multilevel analyses revealed gender differences, particularly on the CBRS teacher-rated measure. Finally, higher levels of behavioral self-regulation were related to higher academic skills after important background variables were controlled, although some cross-cultural differences in the predictive utility of the HTKS and CBRS were observed. Overall, these results extend prior psychometric work on the HTKS to samples of young European children and support the importance of understanding of the role behavioral self-regulation in young children's development.

Introduction

In the past decade, education policies in Europe, coordinated by the European Union, have called for an increased understanding of self-regulation in early childhood, with the ultimate goal of increasing equity in education (Leseman, 2009). This goal is substantiated by a growing body of international research showing that self-regulation is a critical component of school readiness and an important predictor of academic and social competence (e.g., Blair and Razza, 2007, Duckworth and Seligman, 2005, Gestsdottir and Lerner, 2007, McClelland et al., 2007, Suchodoletz et al., 2009, Wanless et al., 2011b). However, research on this topic is still in its infancy in Europe and the cultural appropriateness of measures of self-regulation, which have been developed and used in other cultural contexts, has not yet been examined. In this paper, we extend prior work by focusing on measuring behavioral self-regulation and examining the relations between behavioral self-regulation and emerging academic skills among children in two European countries, Germany and Iceland.

Self-regulation is a comprehensive construct that describes people's capacities to regulate emotions, cognition, and behaviors (Calkins, 2007). Although there is considerable debate about terminology, behavioral self-regulation refers to the behavioral manifestation of the integration of attention, working memory, and inhibitory control (Wanless, McClelland, Tominey, & Acock, 2011c), which stem from executive functions (EF). In practice, children with strong behavioral self-regulation are better able to apply social rules and standards as guidelines for their behavior and, as such, are more functional in all contexts (Vohs & Baumeister, 2004). Children's abilities to regulate mental processes and control behaviors improve dramatically in the first few years of life making this a sensitive period for growth (Best and Miller, 2010, Blair, 2002, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011, Diamond, 2002, Garon et al., 2008, Vaszonyi and Huang, 2010). The rapid development of behavioral self-regulation in the early childhood years can be seen partly as a result of physiological maturation and changes to structural organization in the prefrontal brain regions (Best and Miller, 2010, Blair, 2002, Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011). As such, there are age differences over the preschool period in children's ability to regulate behavior (Garon et al., 2008). In one study, 5-year-olds worked longer on tasks than did 3-year-olds, and reported less difficulty waiting and maintaining their focus, whereas 3-year-olds focused longer on distractions (e.g., toys) (Kalpidou, Power, Cherry, & Gottfried, 2004). Similarly, working memory becomes more accurate during this age period and children show increased inhibitory control (Blair and Razza, 2007, Carlson, 2005, Tominey and McClelland, 2011). Results from a recent longitudinal study indicated a positive rate of change in self-regulation over a 6-year period independent of children's initial level at 4.5 years (Vaszonyi & Huang, 2010). Studies using a recently developed direct behavioral measure (the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task, HTKS), which requires the integration of these cognitive processes, have found similar age differences; older participants achieved higher scores than did younger children (e.g., Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008) and significant gains in HTKS scores across preschool and kindergarten have been observed (e.g., Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009a, McClelland et al., 2007, Wanless et al., 2011c). However, there is wide variability in the development of these skills and research suggests substantial individual differences at school entry (e.g., Blair and Razza, 2007, McClelland et al., 2006, Sektnan et al., 2010). Moreover, these individual differences seem to be relatively stable over time (Vaszonyi & Huang, 2010). Thus, the early childhood years are an especially important time period to assess behavioral self-regulation with a measure that is reliable, valid, and culturally appropriate.

Differing cultural traditions, values, and structures support the notion that there may be cultural variations in behavioral self-regulation and how this construct is measured. Although culture and country are not synonymous (Rogoff, 2003), we use country in the present study to represent participants’ shared national identity and refer to this as their culture. Cultural traditions and values can influence teachers’ expectations and perceptions of children's self-regulatory behaviors (e.g., Zimmermann, Khoury, Vega, Gil, & Warheit, 1995). Furthermore, child attributes (such as cultural background) relate to teachers’ perceptions of children. For example, in one study, teachers rated children's behavior more positively whose cultural background matched with their own (Saft & Pianta, 2001). This suggests that a “fit” based on cultural background may reflect culture-specific definitions of expectations for children's behavior.

Previous research on the cultural context of development has largely focused on comparing the level of a certain variable across different cultures (Cole & Packer, 2011). More recently, however, it has been suggested that the culturally specific relationships between variables may be another important unit of analysis (Raver, 2004, Wanless et al., 2011b). The relations between behavioral self-regulation and academic outcomes, for example, have been substantiated by research with culturally diverse samples (e.g., Raver et al., 2011, Rimm-Kaufman and Wanless, in press, Smith-Donald et al., 2007, Trommsdorff, 2009, Wanless et al., 2011b). Therefore, the goal of the current paper is to assess whether measures developed with U.S. samples can validly be used with German and Icelandic samples to capture relations between behavioral self-regulation and early academic achievement in each cultural context.

Behavioral self-regulation skills are particularly relevant in school contexts as they enable children to adapt successfully to classroom demands (e.g., follow classroom rules, pay attention to instructions) and engage in learning opportunities. Several recent studies have related individual cognitive components of behavioral self-regulation (i.e., attention, working memory, and inhibitory control) to academic outcomes. Blair and Razza (2007), for example, found that the ability to focus attention predicted children's academic achievement. Strong working memory has also been shown to relate to better reading and math skills (e.g., Gathercole & Alloway, 2008) and individual differences in inhibitory control account for substantial variability in children's academic outcomes (e.g., Clark, Pritchard, & Woodward, 2010). However, many demands children face in educational settings require these multiple cognitive skills working together (Blair, 2002). There is also strong evidence connecting the integration of these skills (i.e., behavioral self-regulation) with emergent academic achievement (e.g., Connor et al., 2010, McClelland et al., 2007, McClelland et al., 2000, Suchodoletz et al., 2009, Wanless et al., 2011b). Moreover, increasing evidence suggests that behavioral self-regulation skills are malleable. For example, a number of studies have demonstrated that children receiving interventions focusing on behavioral self-regulation show significant gains in behavioral self-regulation skills and increased academic achievement (see e.g., Connor et al., 2010, Diamond et al., 2007, Raver et al., 2011, Tominey and McClelland, 2011). These results are promising, as they provide preliminary evidence for the plasticity of behavioral self-regulation across the preschool and early school years and provide an opportunity for the successful implementation of teaching methods and interventions that support behavioral self-regulation.

Recent research documents a growing gender gap in academic achievement where girls outperform boys in childhood (Morrison & Cooney, 2002) and adolescence in the U.S. and other countries (Duckworth and Seligman, 2006, Halldorsson and Olafsson, 2009). In the search for an explanation, differences in behavioral self-regulation between girls and boys have been discussed as a potential contributor to these achievement disparities. Indeed, mounting evidence points to gender differences in behavioral self-regulation among kindergarten children (e.g., Matthews, Cameron Ponitz, & Morrison, 2009), elementary school children (e.g., Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009b, Else-Quest et al., 2006), and adolescents (e.g., Duckworth & Seligman, 2006) with girls outperforming boys. In a German sample, however, gender differences were only found according to mother reports but not on a direct measure of behavioral self-regulation (Suchodoletz, Trommsdorff, & Heikamp, 2011). To date, there have been no studies of possible gender differences in behavioral self-regulation skills among Icelandic children. These findings point to the importance of investigating whether gender differences in behavioral self-regulation emerge across cultural settings and how they are reflected in children's early academic skills.

A number of different methods have been used to measure behavioral self-regulation in young children, including self-reports, direct assessments, and others’ reports of children's regulation (for a review of measurement see McClelland et al., 2010). In research with young children, caregiver and/or teacher reports and direct observations are the most common assessment methods (McClelland et al., 2010, Smith-Donald et al., 2007). Teachers are an important source of information and have valuable perspectives on children's behavior in classroom settings. Compared to a direct measure, teachers typically base their ratings on many observations of behaviors over an extended period of time and in many different contexts. Several studies have documented positive associations between teacher-ratings and directly measured behavioral self-regulation (e.g., McClelland et al., 2007, Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2009). However, although teacher-ratings provide useful information, possible biases may be introduced (Mashburn et al., 2006, Rothbart et al., 2001). For example, teachers’ personal attributes may color their subjective evaluations (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000) and their expectations about children's behavior may affect their judgments about whether a certain behavior has occurred more often than is appropriate for children of a particular age. In addition, cultural values and perceptions of children may impact teacher-ratings (e.g., Heine et al., 2002, Weisz et al., 1995). Thus, teachers in one culture may have different expectations than teachers in another culture, which has been referred to as “the reference group effect” (e.g., Heine et al., 2002).

Recently, direct measures have become common in the assessment of behavioral self-regulation with young children (e.g., Garon et al., 2008, Kochanska et al., 2001, McIntyre et al., 2006). Many direct measures, however, are not easy to apply in school settings as they were designed for the laboratory. Recently, lab-based self-regulation tasks have been adapted for field research, including the Preschool Self-regulation Assessment (PSRA; Smith-Donald et al., 2007), and validated with culturally diverse samples in the U.S. (e.g., Raver et al., 2011, Smith-Donald et al., 2007). In general, however, ceiling effects for 5-year-olds have been identified on the majority of regulatory tasks developed for younger children (Rothbart, Posner, & Kieras, 2006).

The Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders task (HTKS) was developed as a direct measure of behavioral self-regulation for preschoolers and early elementary school-aged children (Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008, Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009a). The task produced valid scores on behavioral self-regulation in different cultural contexts. In U.S. samples, positive correlations have been shown between HTKS scores and parent ratings of attention and inhibitory control (e.g., Cameron Ponitz, McClelland, et al., 2009). In China, positive correlations were found with directly measured attention and working memory skills (Lan, Legare, Cameron Ponitz, Li, & Morrison, 2011). Furthermore, research using the HTKS demonstrated predictive validity such that higher behavioral self-regulation predicted higher mathematics, vocabulary, and early literacy scores in U.S. (e.g., Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009a, McClelland et al., 2007) and Asian samples (e.g., Taiwan, China, and South Korea; Wanless, McClelland, Acock, et al., 2011). Finally, reliability assessments of the measure have shown excellent inter-rater reliability (Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008, Connor et al., 2010). The HTKS might be especially useful because it is quick to administer, requires few materials, can be easily used in classroom settings, and approximates behavior that children exhibit in classroom settings (e.g., having to inhibit shouting out an answer and raising a hand instead) (Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008, Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009a). However, no studies have systematically examined the use of the HTKS in multiple European samples.

Given the different strengths of teacher reports and direct assessments, using both types of measures may be most informative when assessing young children's behavioral self-regulation, especially in cultures where there is limited research on children's behavioral self-regulation skills. However, commonly used measures have often been developed and validated in samples outside of Europe. Raver (2004) argued that meaningful conclusions from data collected with a certain assessment can only be drawn if measurement equivalence has been established, i.e., if an assessment tool measures a given developmental construct in the same way across samples from diverse (cultural) backgrounds. Furthermore, worldwide changes in the cultural make-up of societies substantiate the need to investigate the appropriateness of measures that have been developed with a group in which one cultural background predominates for potential use among individuals from different cultural backgrounds (Allen & Walsh, 2000). In order to meet the growing need of European policy makers, educators, and researchers for tools that produce valid and reliable ratings of children's behavioral self-regulation, the present study explored the appropriateness of the HTKS as an assessment of behavioral self-regulation in young children from Germany and Iceland.

The present study examined the cultural appropriateness of the HTKS as a quick and easy-to-administer direct measure of behavior self-regulation by addressing three aims: (1) to examine the psychometric properties and construct validity of the HTKS in Germany and Iceland, (2) to investigate gender differences in young children's behavioral self-regulation in these two European countries, and (3) to explore the links between behavioral self-regulation and academic achievement in Germany and Iceland. With respect to the construct validity of the HTKS, we hypothesized that HTKS scores would (a) reflect variability in behavioral self-regulation among German and Icelandic children, (b) vary by child age with older children scoring higher than younger children, and (c) relate positively to teacher-ratings of classroom behavioral self-regulation, as has been found with previous research in U.S. (e.g., Cameron Ponitz et al., 2008, Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009a) and Asian samples (e.g., Wanless, McClelland, Acock, et al., 2011). It was unclear whether gender differences could be expected in behavioral self-regulation among German and Icelandic children because of mixed findings of previous research. However, based on some research favoring girls on behavioral self-regulation and academic skills (e.g., Duckworth and Seligman, 2006, Halldorsson and Olafsson, 2009, Matthews et al., 2009), it was plausible that girls would outperform boys on both measures of behavioral self-regulation (i.e., HTKS and teacher-rating). Finally, based on previous studies (e.g., Blair and Razza, 2007, Connor et al., 2010, McClelland et al., 2007, Wanless et al., 2011b), we hypothesized that there would be positive relations between behavioral self-regulation scores (i.e., HTKS and teacher-rating) and emergent academic skills, which would also speak to the predictive validity of the HTKS. In these analyses, we controlled for several variables associated with academic skill formation: child age, gender, and maternal education.