Citation

Choi JY, Castle S, Burchinal M, Horm D, Guss S, Bingham GE. J. Sch. Psychol. 2018; 71: 1-17.

Affiliation

Department of Early Childhood Education, Georgia State University, United States of America.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Society for the Study of School Psychology, Publisher Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jsp.2018.10.002

PMID

30463665

Abstract

Using data from a large study of 78 high-quality Head Start classrooms in 12 sites across the U.S., this study examined whether peers' receptive vocabulary skills and teacher-reported social-emotional (S-E) functioning (i.e., behavior problems and self-regulation) measured at the beginning of the preschool year were related to children's gains in these three domains over a school year. Analyses included over 75% of the children in each classroom and produced three noteworthy findings. First, children in classrooms where average peers had higher behavior problems demonstrated increased teacher-reported behavior problems themselves at the end of the year. Second, children in classrooms where average peers had higher self-regulation skills demonstrated larger gains in teacher-reported self-regulation skills at the end of the school year. Third, peers' higher baseline self-regulation skills were found to be associated with children's higher self-regulation in spring, especially when children began the school year with higher levels of self-regulation. This finding indicates that children who have higher baseline self-regulation may be better positioned to benefit from their peers' high self-regulation in developing their own self-regulation skills. In contrast, no evidence was found that peers' baseline receptive vocabulary skills were related to children's receptive vocabulary gains over a school year. Additionally, no significant cross-domain peer effects were found between peers' baseline S-E functioning and children's receptive vocabulary gains nor peers' baseline receptive vocabulary skills and children's S-E development over a school year. Implications of these findings for classroom practice and further research are discussed.

Copyright © 2018 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Early care and education; Head Start; Peer effects