Evaluating the Short- and Long-term Impacts of Didactic, Developmental, and Combined Approaches to Kindergarten Teaching in Low- and High-SES Classrooms
Year: 2015
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The benefits of developmental vs. skills-based approaches to kindergarten have been debated, yet the results of small-scale studies examining the effectiveness of high-quality programs remain mixed. This dissertation examined the effectiveness of developmental, didactic, and combined programs on children’s learning behaviors, reading, and math achievement from kindergarten to Grade 5, with classroom SES as a moderator. To overcome methodological issues (e.g., lack of control over pretreatment covariates and ignoring nested data structure) this dissertation utilized multilevel modeling with a propensity score-based semi-parametric weighting method to remove selection bias in the non-experimental data. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Kindergarten Cohort of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K) was used for analysis. The first question explored the natural grouping of teachers’ classroom practice using confirmatory factor analysis and cluster analysis. Analyses revealed four distinct groups of kindergarten programs, which differed along the dimensions of developmental and didactic practices: developmental, didactic, combined(HI) and combined(LO) programs. The second question examined the school-, teacher- and child-level characteristics associated with the four kindergarten programs. Notably, the combined(HI) program teachers were more likely than the developmental program teachers to endorse didactic practices in preschool and kindergarten. The third question explored the interrelationships between kindergarten programs, time allocated to academic subjects, and classroom SES. The results indicated that SES was associated with time allocation but not with instructional approaches. Low SES classrooms spent more time on math, and high SES classrooms spent more time on the arts. The combined(HI) programs spent the largest proportion of time on academic subjects. The final question examined the effectiveness of the kindergarten programs on children’s learning behaviors, reading and math outcomes from kindergarten to Grade 5. Results showed a fairly consistent pattern in program effectiveness as a function of SES. There were very few significant differences in effectiveness across the programs in the high-SES classrooms. In the low SES group, interestingly, the didactic program displayed positive sleeper effects that manifested up to Grade 5 in each of these outcomes. Theoretical implications concerning the conceptualization of teaching practices and practical implications of how SES affects kindergarten effectiveness are discussed.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Emiko Koyama
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2339576609