Preschool Quality Effects on Learning Behavior and Later Achievement in Germany: Moderation by Socioeconomic Status

Abstract

This study investigates whether children's preschool experiences are associated with later achievement via enhanced learning behaviors using data from a German longitudinal study following children (N = 554) from age 3 in preschool to age 8 in second grade. There were two main findings. First, results suggest that more positive learning behaviors at school entry mediate effects of teacher-child interactions in preschool on second-grade achievement. Second, these effects varied by parental socioeconomic status (SES) indicating that low-SES children benefited the most. The findings highlight the role of preschool classroom environments in shaping the school readiness of children with socioeconomic risk factors. Children's experiences in early childhood education (ECE) are foundational to later school success. There is ample evidence that the features of early teacherchild interactions contribute to the development of children's school readiness skills, in particular their early academic skills (Mashburn et al., 2008; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2016; Sylva et al., 2006) and, to some degree, to their selfregulatory and executive functioning skills (Fuhs,

Promoting better functioning among children exposed to high levels of family adversity: the protective role of childcare attendance

“…Finally, the third limitation is the lack of assessment of childcare quality in the ALSPAC study. Other childcare studies have found that the quality of care was a significant factor in the association between childcare attendance and school readiness (Schmerse, 2020). Future studies need to investigate which childcare components (structural and procedural quality) and social processes (e.g., exposure to prosocial models, early cognitive stimulation, and verbalization) might explain the contribution of childcare attendance for children exposed to adversity.…”

“…For example, in comparison to those cared for at home, children from disadvantaged families who attend childcare services are better equipped to later manage classroom demands; they can show higher receptive vocabulary (Berry et al, 2016), better executive functions (i.e., inhibitory control, working memory, and attention shifting; Berry et al, 2016), and early numeracy (Dearing, McCartney, & Taylor, 2009). These compensatory effects are believed to unfold via the provision of age‐appropriate learning materials and activities to stimulate language acquisition, early socialization, and the development of executive functions (McCartney, Dearing, Taylor, & Bub, 2007; Schmerse, 2020).…”

Associations amongst response inhibition, motivational beliefs, and task persistence in early elementary school

“…Task persistence has been associated with teacher reports of students' academic competencies as well as student social and self-regulation skills (Berhenke et al, 2011;Fantuzzo et al, 2005;Li-Grining et al, 2010). Specifically, ratings of student persistence have been linked to behavioral assessments of cognitive control (Sasser et al, 2015;Sung & Wickrama, 2018;Vitiello & Greenfield, 2017), the acquisition of early reading and math skills (Newman et al, 1998;Schmerse, 2020), and achievement trajectories in math and reading across elementary school (Li-Grining et al, 2010).…”

“…Much of the research on persistence is based on global parent or teacher reports of children's engagement in the classroom or with homework materials (Schmerse, 2020;Sung & Wickrama, 2018;Vitiello et al, 2011;Vitiello & Greenfield, 2017). However, learning-related behaviors are thought to be context or task-specific (Barrett & Morgan, 2018;.…”

Improved Probabilistic Frequent Itemset Analysis Strategy of Learning Behaviors Based on Eclat Framework

“…The learning processes supported by online technology and data technology ensure the completeness and continuity of learning behavior data. Massive learning behaviors is an important part of education big data, which provides the possibility for the full development of learning analytics [3,4]. Learning behavior data can be divided into two categories: horizontal format and vertical format from the perspective of data structure and feature attributes.…”