Cumulative Experience of Educational Assets from Preschool through First Grade and the Social-emotional Well-being of English- and Spanish-Speaking Children

Children’s social and emotional experiences influence brain development and are therefore central to outcomes of behavior, learning, and health. The current study examined associations between children’s cumulative educational assets in the early grades and end of first grade social-emotional outcomes for children from English- and Spanish-speaking families. Data were drawn from a sample of preschool-aged children (N = 1,132) from low-income families in a large, culturally, and linguistically diverse sample followed annually from pre-kindergarten through first grade. A multi-method, multi-informant approach was used to assess predictor and outcome variables. Results indicate overall that cumulative experiences of educational assets (teacher-student interaction and relationships, parent-teacher communication) were associated with indicators of children’s social-emotional well-being and matter in similar ways for children from English- and Spanish-speaking families. However, we did find some evidence of significant interactions of Spanish as a home language with cumulative educational assets on children’s conduct problems and feelings about peers

Fadeout in an early mathematics intervention: Constraining content or preexisting differences?

A robust finding across research on early childhood educational interventions is that the treatment effect diminishes over time, with children not receiving the intervention eventually catching up to children who did. One popular explanation for fadeout of early mathematics interventions is that elementary school teachers may not teach the kind of advanced content that children are prepared for after receiving the intervention, so lower-achieving children in the control groups of early mathematics interventions catch up to the higher-achieving children in the treatment groups. An alternative explanation is that persistent individual differences in children’s long-term mathematical development result more from relatively stable pre-existing differences in their skills and environments than from the direct effects of previous knowledge on later knowledge. We tested these two hypotheses using data from an effective preschool mathematics intervention previously known to show a diminishing treatment effect over time. We compared the intervention group to a matched subset of the control group with a similar mean and variance of scores at the end of treatment. We then tested the relative contributions of factors that similarly constrain learning in children from treatment and control groups with the same level of post-treatment achievement and pre-existing differences between these two groups to the fadeout of the treatment effect over time. We found approximately 72% of the fadeout effect to be attributable to pre-existing differences between children in treatment and control groups with the same level of achievement at post-test. These differences were fully statistically attenuated by children’s prior academic achievement

Promoting School Readiness with Preschool Curricula

Preschool curricula are a much-researched topic in early childhood education and a renewed emphasis has been placed on understanding the effectiveness of curricula as the number of children enrolled in public preschool in the U.S. is increasing. Key to understanding how curricula are more or less effective in promoting classroom quality and children’s school readiness is knowing the differential relations between various packages that are used in public preschool classrooms, the extent to which these curricula are being implemented faithfully, and for whom they are most effective.This dissertation, comprised of three studies, comprehensively examines the different ways in which various curricula promote children’s learning and development so that they are school-ready at the end of the preschool year. The first and second studies focus on whole-child curricula. For study one, I examine associations of various whole-child curricula packages on classroom quality and children’s school readiness outcomes using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, 2009 Cohort. Results suggest that the whole-child curricular packages under examination have no associations with improved classroom quality or children’s school readiness skills, including academic, socio-emotional, and executive function outcomes. In study two, I conduct open-ended observations of curriculum implementation fidelity across four classrooms located in Head Start centers to understand what a whole-child classroom looks like in practice. I find that teachers are able to implement easier, explicit components of the curriculum throughout the day as these activities are built into the daily classroom routine. However, I observe that teachers struggle with scaffolding children’s learning during these activities, which takes considerable skill on their part. Finally, in the third study I use quasi-experimental methods to explicitly test five different hypotheses of treatment effect heterogeneity in academic skill-specific curriculum interventions based on educational, developmental, and economic theory. Findings suggest that skill-specific curricula have differential effects at the top and bottom of the distribution of children’s literacy and language outcomes.Together, the three studies provide new evidence that furthers the field’s understanding of curriculum as an important instructional feature in public preschools, both nationally and locally, and has implications for promoting the development of linguistically and culturally diverse low-income and disadvantaged children. These results provide policy-relevant information for facilitating the most efficient use of early learning funding, making decisions about how best to target specific curricular programs, and suggesting ways to improve the design and implementation of programs for high-quality preschool

Promoting School Readiness with Preschool Curricula

Preschool curricula are a much-researched topic in early childhood education and a renewed emphasis has been placed on understanding the effectiveness of curricula as the number of children enrolled in public preschool in the U.S. is increasing. Key to understanding how curricula are more or less effective in promoting classroom quality and children’s school readiness is knowing the differential relations between various packages that are used in public preschool classrooms, the extent to which these curricula are being implemented faithfully, and for whom they are most effective.This dissertation, comprised of three studies, comprehensively examines the different ways in which various curricula promote children’s learning and development so that they are school-ready at the end of the preschool year. The first and second studies focus on whole-child curricula. For study one, I examine associations of various whole-child curricula packages on classroom quality and children’s school readiness outcomes using data from the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, 2009 Cohort. Results suggest that the whole-child curricular packages under examination have no associations with improved classroom quality or children’s school readiness skills, including academic, socio-emotional, and executive function outcomes. In study two, I conduct open-ended observations of curriculum implementation fidelity across four classrooms located in Head Start centers to understand what a whole-child classroom looks like in practice. I find that teachers are able to implement easier, explicit components of the curriculum throughout the day as these activities are built into the daily classroom routine. However, I observe that teachers struggle with scaffolding children’s learning during these activities, which takes considerable skill on their part. Finally, in the third study I use quasi-experimental methods to explicitly test five different hypotheses of treatment effect heterogeneity in academic skill-specific curriculum interventions based on educational, developmental, and economic theory. Findings suggest that skill-specific curricula have differential effects at the top and bottom of the distribution of children’s literacy and language outcomes.Together, the three studies provide new evidence that furthers the field’s understanding of curriculum as an important instructional feature in public preschools, both nationally and locally, and has implications for promoting the development of linguistically and culturally diverse low-income and disadvantaged children. These results provide policy-relevant information for facilitating the most efficient use of early learning funding, making decisions about how best to target specific curricular programs, and suggesting ways to improve the design and implementation of programs for high-quality preschool

Evaluating Promising Practices in Undergraduate STEM Lecture Courses

Over the course of one year, we systematically observed instruction in nearly all large gateway STEM courses at the University of California, Irvine to assess the prevalence of promising instructional practices and their implications for student success. More than half of the courses included promising instructional practices. Our most conservative student fixed-effects models suggest that students earn slightly higher grades in courses where instructors use explicit epistemological instruction, frequent assessment, and interactive instruction. Although we find no evidence to suggest that these strategies have lasting effects for the average UC Irvine student, we do find they have unique positive effects on the achievement of first-generation college students

Which Preschool Mathematics Competencies Are Most Predictive of Fifth Grade Achievement?

In an effort to promote best practices regarding mathematics teaching and learning at the preschool level, national advisory panels and organizations have emphasized the importance of children's emergent counting and related competencies, such as the ability to verbally count, maintain one-to-one correspondence, count with cardinality, subitize, and count forward or backward from a given number. However, little research has investigated whether the kind of mathematical knowledge promoted by the various standards documents actually predict later mathematics achievement. The present study uses longitudinal data from a primarily low-income and minority sample of children to examine the extent to which preschool mathematical competencies, specifically basic and advanced counting, predict fifth grade mathematics achievement. Using regression analyses, we find early numeracy abilities to be the strongest predictors of later mathematics achievement, with advanced counting competencies more predictive than basic counting competencies. Our results highlight the significance of preschool mathematics knowledge for future academic achievement