The effect of peers' self-regulation on preschooler's self-regulation and literacy growth
Graphical abstract
Section snippets
Defining self-regulation
The definition and conceptualization of self-regulation is frequently debated, in part, because of its relevance to many fields of study including developmental (effortful control; Aksan & Kochanska, 2004), educational (McClelland et al., 2007), and cognitive research traditions (executive function; Zelazo et al., 2003). That said, there is general consensus that self-regulation refers to a multiple component construct that broadly represents the volitional ability to respond to the environment
Peer effects, self-regulation, and early literacy
Previous empirical studies clearly indicate that peer effects, often operationalized by aggregating children's individual characteristics at the classroom (mean) level, influence the manifestation of individual skills (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2012, Domínguez et al., 2011, Henry and Rickman, 2007, Justice et al., 2011, Mashburn et al., 2009). For instance, peer levels of self-regulation predict first graders' literacy gains above and beyond the individual child's self-regulatory skills (Skibbe
Sex and peer effects
Interactions between boys and girls at school often play a role in skill manifestation and development (Lavy & Schlosser, 2011). Findings based on individuals tend to favor girls when it comes to levels of self-regulation and academic achievement, particularly literacy achievement (Duckworth and Seligman, 2006, Educational Testing Service, 2001, Matthews et al., 2009, Ready et al., 2005; although see Montroy et al., 2014). However, few studies have examined the role of a child's sex in relation
Current study
Our research aims focused on both replicating and extending the growing literature on peer effects within the preschool classroom. The first aim was to determine whether fall classroom peers' levels of self-regulation are associated with two key aspects of school readiness: growth in self-regulation and aspects of early literacy. Based on previous findings, it was expected that children in classrooms where peers demonstrated a higher average level of self-regulation would exhibit greater growth
Participants
Children (N = 629) from 56 classrooms were assessed as part of an ongoing larger study: the Michigan Longitudinal Study of Early Literacy Development (removed for review process) which included preschool students from four Midwestern preschools across three years. Two preschools were public, one was a private, NAEYC accredited preschool associated with a university, and one was a joint public/university preschool that was also NAEYC accredited. Data were collected across three years with some
Results
Means and standard deviations are listed in Table 1. Correlations for the predictor, outcome and covariates are presented in Table 2. To investigate whether classroom levels of peer self-regulation predicted growth in self-regulation and early literacy skills, we used multilevel modeling within a structural equation modeling framework to account for the fact that children are nested within classrooms, and therefore may have a shared classroom variance (Peugh, 2010, Singer and Willett, 2003).
Discussion
In accordance with an ecological systems approach, peers' competencies play a role in the development of complex individual skills (e.g., Bronfenbrenner and Morris, 2006, Hattie, 2002, Justice et al., 2011, Skibbe et al., 2012). The goal of the current study was to evaluate the association between classroom peer levels of self-regulation and growth in aspects of school readiness skills across preschool. Results indicated that the self-regulation skills of classroom peers moderated children's
Conclusions
Findings from this study contribute to the growing literature suggesting the importance of classroom peers in the development and manifestation of a subset of key school readiness skills. The present study indicates that peer levels of self-regulation within preschool significantly predicted self-regulation and early letter word decoding gains, and that being in classrooms with peers who have higher levels of self-regulation provides children with lower levels of initial individual
Funding
The research reported here was partially supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305A100566 to Oregon State University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute of the U.S. Department of Education.
Acknowledgments
We thank the families who participated in this study. We also wish to thank a large number of student staff and volunteers who managed and assisted with the data collection. Finally we appreciate the comments and suggestions provided by our anonymous peer reviewers.
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