The Role of Self-Regulation and Classroom Self-Regulatory Supports in Early Education

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Project Summary The overarching goals of the study are to identify mechanisms that explain positive short-term effects of public pre-kindergarten (pre-k) on low-income children’s education and health outcomes, and to examine pathways for sustaining positive short-term effects into early schooling (1st – 4th grade) to guide actionable decisions to improve education and health for vulnerable young children. We focus on children’s self-regulatory skills (e.g., attention; impulse control; memory; planning) and the public pre-k classroom features that support their development as prime candidates for mechanisms linking pre-k with education and health outcomes because (a) self-regulatory skills have been empirically documented to underlie education and health outcomes in childhood and beyond; (b) economic adversity compromises the development of brain regions underlying emerging self-regulatory skills; and (c) self-regulatory skills are malleable during early childhood and thus sensitive to variation in pre-k and early elementary environments. The 7-year longitudinal study takes place in the Tulsa Public Schools (TPS) district, which hosts a nationally recognized pre-k program that serves a largely low-income and highly diverse population of children. We are following a single cohort of low-income children who entered preschool at age 3 in 2016, through 4th grade; the children (N»1,200) are currently in 2nd grade. In each project year, we assess the children’s self-regulatory, education, and health outcomes, observe their classrooms, and interview their teachers and parents. Through February 2020, we had obtained data on pace with our proposed timeline and Specific Aims, at very high response rates (e.g. 100% of sampled children’s first grade teachers completed surveys; 92% of sample children were assessed in the fall of first grade). The proposed administrative supplement is vital to addressing the key aims of our longitudinal study, following the TPS district’s shift to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Two issues are paramount. First, our focal children cannot be assessed in person as planned, yet a significant pause in outcome assessments would seriously compromise our ability to assess grade-by-grade growth in outcomes, which is central to understanding sustained pre-k impacts. Second, school closures and the move to home-based distance learning has dramatically altered children’s educational environments and experiences, with unknown – and likely quite variable – repercussions for their learning and development. To understand the impact these unanticipated events have on our study, and to minimize harmful consequences for our original data collection timeline and aims, we must: (1) survey children’s parents and teachers about their educational experiences in this remote learning environment to support interpretation of differential consequences of the COVID-19 response for children’s education and health growth patterns, and (2) shift previously planned in-person child assessments – key study outcome variables – to online formats that support remote administration. The supplement would allow us to address these essential steps to maintain study integrity.