Pre‐K attendance and social development: The moderating role of kindergarten classroom experiences

Abstract

Many studies have established that there are important life‐long benefits of attending pre‐K. At the same time, recent research suggests that pre‐K attenders may enter and exit kindergarten exhibiting less optimal social and learning behaviours than their non‐attending peers, and little attention has been paid to what factors may contribute to these patterns of development after children enter kindergarten. The current study will address these gaps in knowledge using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2011 to examine the social and learning behaviours of pre‐K attenders and nonattenders at kindergarten entry and exit. Moreover, we will determine the extent to which children's social and behavioural skills change at differential rates across the kindergarten year as a function of pre‐K attendance and their kindergarten classroom experiences, with a focus on the academic rigour, activity settings and teacher‐student relationships.

Registered Reports with secondary developmental data: Introduction to the special issue

“…Examining parenting from a different perspective, Wright and Jackson (2024) drew from the German Socioeconomic Panel study to test the independent predictive power of parent and child personality traits on a variety of adolescent outcomes (e.g., health, education, family and civic engagement). Several studies focused on the schooling context: Spiegler et al (2024) used the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries to examine how peer victimisation was related to classroom ethnic diversity and teacher interactions; Kim and Sidney (2024) used the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study to examine sources of influences for individual differences in students' academic self‐concept; and Zimmermann et al (2024) used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten class of 2011 to understand how pre‐Kindergarten enrollment was related to indicators of social development across the transition into and out of Kindergarten. Finally, two studies examined physiological aspects of development: Chaku and Barry (2024) used the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study to understand how hormonal profiles were associated with cognitive development, and Woods et al (2024) drew from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study to test whether indicators of sleep were longitudinally associated with cognitive and behavioural development.…”