Elementary School Climate and Child Behavior Problems

描述(由申请人提供)：研究表明，儿童的行为轨迹受到小学行为氛围的影响，学校和课堂环境的质量可能会对青春期和成年期的行为结果产生长期影响。此外，一些改善学校行为氛围的干预措施已经证明是有效的，而其他有希望的方法目前正在评估中。然而，为了评估全国范围内对学校干预计划的潜在需求，还需要更多关于自然环境下学校行为氛围影响的信息。特别是，关于美国当前小学环境质量的研究很少，也很少尝试使用非实验数据来评估学校行为环境对儿童行为的影响。此外，研究设计和范围上的一些限制也适用于现有的文献。这项拟议的研究将开始解决这些限制，通过估计小学行为气候质量的模型，以及行为环境对儿童行为问题影响的模型，使用来自全国代表性的、非实验的、对幼儿园儿童的纵向研究的数据。 这项研究的具体目的是：1)估计美国存在破坏性学习环境的小学的比例；2)确定与课堂破坏性和学校氛围显著相关的小学和教师特征；3)估计儿童学校环境对从幼儿园到三年级的行为问题持续性的影响。数据将来自早期儿童纵向研究-幼儿园队列(ECLS-K)，这是一项对大约22,000名在幼儿园就读的儿童进行的纵向研究。学校气氛对儿童行为的影响将使用多水平模型来估计，这些模型允许学校气氛和行为问题之间在基线上相互作用。这项研究将比以往更全面地了解学校的状况及其对儿童行为的影响。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research suggests that children's behavioral trajectories are influenced by the behavioral climates of their elementary schools, and that the quality of school and classroom environments may have long-lasting effects on behavioral outcomes in adolescence and adulthood. Moreover, several interventions to improve the behavioral climate of schools have demonstrated efficacy, while other promising approaches are currently being evaluated. Additional information about the effects of school behavioral climate in naturalistic settings is needed, however, in order to evaluate the potential demand for school intervention programs nationwide. In particular, there have been few studies of the current quality of elementary school environments in the U.S., and few attempts to estimate the effects of school behavioral climate on child behavior using non-experimental data. Also, several limitations in study design and scope apply to the existing literature. This proposed study will begin to address these limitations by estimating models of the quality of elementary school's behavioral climates, and models of the effects of behavioral climate on childhood behavior problems using data from a nationally-representative, non-experimental, longitudinal study of kindergartners. The specific aims of this study are: 1) to estimate the proportion of elementary schools in the U.S. with disruptive learning environments; 2) to identify elementary school and teacher characteristics that are significantly associated with the disruptiveness of classrooms and with school climate; and 3) to estimate the effects of children's school environments on the persistence of behavior problems from kindergarten through third grade. The data will come from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -- Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a longitudinal study of approximately 22,000 children attending kindergarten at baseline. Effects of school climate on child behavior will be estimated using multilevel models that allow for interactions between school climate and behavior problems at baseline. The study will provide a more comprehensive picture of the status of schools and their effects on child behavior than has been available previously.