Leslie R. Hawley

Temperament and Teacher–Child Conflict in Preschool: The Moderating Roles of Classroom Instructional and Emotional Support

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study is an examination of (a) links between preschool children’s temperament (effortful control, shyness, and anger) and teacher–child conflict and (b) classroom instructional and emotional support as moderators of associations between temperament and teacher–child conflict. Children (N = 104) were enrolled in 23 classrooms in 9 preschools in a midwestern city. Teachers provided ratings of children’s temperament and parents reported demographic information in the fall of the school year, classrooms were observed in the winter to assess instructional and emotional support, and teachers rated conflict with children in the spring. Multilevel models were estimated, and 3 main findings emerged. First, children’s effortful control was negatively associated with their level of conflict with teachers. Second, children’s effortful control was negatively related to teacher–child conflict in classrooms with low emotional support but unrelated to conflict in classrooms with high emotional support. Third, children’s effortful control was negatively related to conflict in classrooms with high instructional support but unrelated to conflict in classrooms with low instructional support. Practice or Policy: Findings highlight the importance of considering the interplay of children’s effortful control and preschool classroom instructional and emotional support in the development of early teacher–child conflict.

Defining and Describing Rural: Implications for Rural Special Education Research and Policy.

A critical aspect of rural research is carefully defining and describing the rural context. This is particularly important in rural special education research because different definitions of rural may influence resource allocation, grant funding eligibility, and/or research findings. In order to highlight the importance of operationalizing rural, we discuss the challenges of defining rural, provide descriptions of commonly used definitions to familiarize readers with standardized coding schemes, and summarize an empirical example demonstrating the implications different definitions can have on rural special education research and policy. We conclude by providing recommendations for both producers and consumers of research.

Defining and Communicating Rural

Developing an operational definition of rural is a crucial component of rural education research. Although researchers have discussed the challenges of defining rural (e.g., Coladarci in J Res Rural Educ 22(3), 2007; Cromartie and Bucholtz in Amber Waves 6:28–34, 2008; Hart et al. in Am J Public Health 95:1149–1155, 2005; Howley et al. in J Res Rural Educ 20(18), 2005; Isserman in Int Reg Sci Rev 28:465–499, 2005), these discussions have generally been presented at a theoretical level or do not consider issues that occur once a definition has been chosen. Examples of existing definitions and suggested guidelines are needed to ensure researchers understand the importance of aligning their operational definition of rural with the context and goals of their study, as this alignment influences the generalizability of their findings. The purpose of this chapter is threefold. First, we aim to inform rural researchers of the variety of definitions used within policy and research by providing a description of the most common definitions available to education policy makers and researchers. Next, we provide empirical examples of the impact of the choice of rural definition on statistical results and substantive inferences. Finally, we discuss practices advocated by Koziol et al. (J Res Rural Educ 30(4), 2015) that outline how to identify a suitable definition of rural, and communicate the findings given the chosen definition. We conclude by providing recommendations for future research.

Child temperamental regulation and classroom quality in Head Start: Considering the role of cumulative economic risk

There is growing recognition that cumulative economic risk places children at higher risk for depressed academic competencies (Crosnoe & Cooper, 2010; NCCP, 2008; Sameroff, 2000). Yet, children’s temperamental regulation and the quality of the early childhood classroom environment have been associated with better academic skills. This study is an examination of prekindergarten classroom quality (instructional support, emotional support, organization) as a moderator between temperamental regulation and early math and literacy skills for children at varying levels of cumulative economic risk. The sample includes children enrolled in Head Start programs drawn from the FACES 2009 study. Three main findings emerged. First, for lower and highest risk children, more instructional support was associated with better math performance when children had high levels of temperamental regulation but poorer performance when children had low temperamental regulation. Second, among highest risk children, low instructional support was protective for math performance for children with low temperamental regulation and detrimental for those with high temperamental regulation. Third, for highest risk children, high classroom organization predicted better literacy scores for those with high temperamental regulation. Children with low temperamental regulation were expected to perform about the same, regardless of the level of classroom organization. Implications are discussed.

Stability of Teacher Value-Added Rankings Across Measurement Model and Scaling Conditions

ABSTRACT Value-added assessment methods have been criticized by researchers and policy makers for a number of reasons. One issue includes the sensitivity of model results across different outcome measures. This study examined the utility of incorporating multivariate latent variable approaches within a traditional value-added framework. We evaluated the stability of teacher rankings across univariate and multivariate measurement model structures and scaling metric combinations using a cumulative cross-classified mixed effect model. Our results showed multivariate models were more stable across modeling conditions than univariate approaches. These findings suggest there is potential utility in incorporating multiple measures with teacher evaluation systems, yet future research will need to evaluate the degree to which models recover known population parameters via Monte Carlo simulation.