CHARACTERISTICS OF HEAD START TEACHING TEAMS: ASSOCIATIONS WITH CLASSROOM QUALITY AND CHILD OUTCOMES

启蒙教学团队的特征：与课堂质量和儿童成果的关联

• 批准号: 100200
• 负责人: DIANE HORM
• 金额: $ 2.45万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-29 至 2018-09-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/100200
• 关键词: CHARACTERISTICS; HEAD; START; TEACHING; TEAMS

A plethora of research exists regarding how teacher interactions influence classroom quality (Bailey, Zinsser, Curby, Denham, & Bassett, 2013; Castle et al, 2015; Howes & Smith, 1995; Phillipsen, Burchinal, Howes, & Cryers, 1997). Many of those studies used data gathered from lead teachers without much, if any, consideration of the other adults in the classroom. However, most early childhood classrooms are staffed by more than one adult (Ratcliff et al., 2011). In fact, two Head Start Performance Standards, 1306.20 and 1306.32, call for this staffing pattern. Head Start requires that classroom staff work together to plan, organize, and provide activities that promote care and development of young children. Previous studies that focus on the lead teacher overlook a key component of the classroom-the teaching team. The interactions and characteristics of the assistant teachers combined with those of the lead teachers are important contextual factors that must be examined in order to understand the dynamics of classroom environments. Gathering information on how the two staff work together as a team will fill gaps in the current body of early childhood education literature. The proposed study will examine associations among teaching team characteristics, classroom quality, and child outcomes within a large Head Start agency. This mixed method study will examine data from 45 Head Start toddler and preschool classrooms including 45 lead and assistant teacher pairs and approximately 148 children. Multiple data collection methods include classroom observations to document teacher-child interactions, teacher's ratings of their perceptions and beliefs related to their teaching team and pre- and post-assessments of child outcomes on measures of cognitive development, receptive and expressive vocabulary, social emotional development, and executive function. The results generated will describe the characteristics of existing teaching teams. The results will also provide information on how teaching staff describe their current team functioning and perceive their level of teamwork. This study hypothesizes that classroom staff with positive perceptions of their existing teams will have higher classroom quality scores and better child outcomes than those teams that have less positive perceptions of their current teaching team. Management research shows that individuals with positive perceptions of their team are more effective and generate positive outcomes (Kozlowski & Bell, 2013; Leana, Appelbaum, & Shevchuk, 2009). The study results will be useful to the local Head Start agency collaborating with this research study and to the field of early childhood by providing insight on teaching team practices and perceptions of teamwork. Classroom staff could benefit by understanding the teamwork processes that are successful and challenging and how those behaviors relate to interactions with children and resulting child outcomes. This information will provide insight to administrators on how to promote effective teaching teams through monitoring and professional development.

关于教师互动如何影响课堂质量的研究非常多(Bailey，Zinsser，Curby，Denham，&Bassett，2013；Castle et al，2015；Howes&Smith，1995；Phillipsen，Burchinal，Howes，&Cryers，1997)。这些研究中的许多都使用了从班主任那里收集的数据，即使有的话，也没有考虑到教室里的其他成年人。然而，大多数幼儿教室的工作人员不止一个成年人(Ratcliff等人，2011年)。事实上，1306.20和1306.32这两个Head Start绩效标准要求采用这种人员配置模式。Head Start要求教室工作人员共同努力，计划、组织和提供促进幼儿护理和发展的活动。以往的研究侧重于班主任，忽视了课堂的一个关键组成部分--教师团队。为了了解课堂环境的动态，必须考察助理教师和主讲教师之间的互动和特点。收集关于这两个工作人员如何作为一个团队一起工作的信息将填补目前幼儿教育文献中的空白。 这项拟议的研究将在一家大型的Head Start机构内调查教师团队特征、课堂质量和儿童结果之间的关系。这项混合方法研究将检查来自45个学龄前儿童和学龄前儿童教室的数据，其中包括45对主教和助理教师以及大约148名儿童。多种数据收集方法包括课堂观察，以记录教师与儿童的互动，教师对他们与教师团队相关的感知和信念的评分，以及对儿童在认知发展、接受性和表现性词汇、社会情感发展和执行功能方面的前后评估。所产生的结果将描述现有教学团队的特点。结果还将提供有关教学人员如何描述他们当前的团队运作和感知他们的团队合作水平的信息。这项研究假设，与那些对当前教学团队不那么积极的团队相比，对现有团队有积极看法的班级员工会有更高的课堂质量分数和更好的孩子成绩。管理研究表明，对团队有积极看法的人更有效率，并产生积极的结果(Kozlowski&Bell，2013；Leana，Appelbaum&Shevchuk，2009)。 研究结果将有助于与这项研究合作的当地Head Start机构，并通过提供关于教学团队实践和对团队合作的看法的见解，对幼儿领域有用。课堂工作人员可以通过了解成功和具有挑战性的团队合作过程以及这些行为与与儿童的互动和由此产生的儿童结果之间的关系而受益。这些信息将为管理人员提供关于如何通过监测和专业发展来促进有效教学团队的见解。