Panayota Mantzicopoulos

Kindergarten Retention: Academic and Behavioral Outcomes Through the End of Second Grade:

This study examined the impact of retention at kindergarten on academic achievement and behavior. Subjects were 53 children, retained at kin dergarten, who were matched to a group of 53 promoted peers on demo graphic characteristics, a measure of school readiness, and preacademic achievement in reading and mathematics. The data were analyzed using both same-age and same-grade comparisons. Results indicated an academic advantage of the retained children during their second year in kindergarten. This advantage was not maintained past kindergarten. Although retained children demonstrated a decline in attention problems during their second year of kindergarten, they continued to perform below the norm for their school districts on academic achievement. The data in this report do not suggest that retention is an effective policy for the young at-risk child.

Coping with school failure: Characteristics of students employing successful and unsuccessful coping strategies

This study examined the characteristics of four groups of children employing positive, defensive, self-blame, or mixed strategies to cope with a failure experience in school. The findings indicated that children who employ positive/action-oriented strategies are more likely to have higher academic achievement and a higher sense of self-worth. In addition, they tend to view themselves as more competent in the area of scholastic achievement and express that they feel successful in their peer relations. Although preliminary, these results suggest that children would profit from a school environment that fosters the development of positive/problem-focused skills.

“A place where living things affect and depend on each other”: Qualitative and quantitative outcomes associated with inclusive science teaching

This investigation employed qualitative/quasi-experimental methods to describe the school factors associated with inclusive science instruction, and to evaluate the classroom achievement of students with disabilities with respect to nondisabled students in the same class. In addition, achievement and attitude comparisons were made between the inclusive science classroom and two comparison classrooms. Two of the three classroom teachers taught an ecosystems unit using the district-adopted textbook and accompanying materials. A third classroom, which also contained five students with various disabilities, was taught the same unit using an activities-based approach. The accommodations that were necessary to include students with disabilities in the science classroom were documented. All students were pre- and posttested on science content, concepts, and processes. Qualitative findings replicated conclusions regarding variables meaningfully associated with successful inclusion in science. Quantitative findings suggested that students in the activities/inclusion classroom demonstrated superior performance on content recall, higher level thinking, verbal elaboration, and affective measures. Students with disabilities in the activities-based classroom made academic gains equivalent to those of their classroom peers, and superior to most nondisabled students in textbook-based classrooms. Implications for instruction and practice are described.

Patterns of Young Children's Motivation for Science and Teacher-Child Relationships

In this article, the authors examined whether there were different motivational profiles within a sample of kindergarteners (N = 110) learning science. The authors identified 3 profiles involving childrens perceived competence in, liking, and ease of learning science by using cluster analysis. High motivational beliefs characterized the largest profile. Low competence but high liking characterized a smaller group, and another group reported low liking with moderate competence. These profiles did not differ by gender, race, early academic achievement, or classroom. However, children with the low-competence and high-liking profile reported less teacher support for learning than did children with high motivational beliefs. Exploratory analysis also indicated that the nature and frequency of observed teacher-child interactions differed by motivational profile.

Head Start Children: School Mobility and Achievement in the Early Grades

Abstract The relationship of 2 school mobility indices (school changes and parental perceptions of mobility effects) to 2nd-grade academic achievement was examined. The sample comprised 90 children who had attended Head Start and had made the transition to public school. Data also were obtained from the childrens mothers. School mobility was defined as the number of school transfers over 3 years (kindergarten to Grade 2). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that frequent school changes in the primary grades were related to lower achievement levels even after controlling for the childs sex and the effects of achievement prior to the school moves.

Younger Children's Changing Self-Concepts: Boys and Girls from Preschool through Second Grade.

The author investigated age- and gender-related changes in self-evaluative judgments of 87 children followed from preschool through 2nd grade. Focusing on cognitive, physical, and peer competence assessed by the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PSPCSA; S. Harter & R. Pike, 1984), the author tested PSPCSA subscale measures for changes in their mean levels, for intercorrelations, and for correlations with external criteria, and then analyzed results for gender and grade trends. Gender effects were not identified in the analyses. Mean-level changes occurred, but patterns of change differed. External measures (teacher ratings) did not relate to childrens self-perceptions (physical and social competences). Whereas external measures of academic competence correlated significantly with childrens self-evaluations, the correlations across grade levels did not differ significantly.

Do certain groups of children profit from early retention? A follow-up study of kindergartners with attention problems

This study re-examines the issue of whether or not early retention results in positive long-term academic and behavioral outcomes for a subgroup of kindergarten children with attention problems. Participants in this investigation were 40 children (25 retained and 15 promoted) with high inattention, drawn from a sample of 62 children (32 retained and 30 promoted) who had taken part in an earlier study on the effects of early retention. The results of this investigation do not support the notion that pre-elementary school retention is a beneficial educational intervention for children with academic and/or behavior difficulties. At the end of second grade there were no consistent academic benefits for retained children with attention problems. Further, the high inattention scores that were accompanied by increased problems in other behavior domains, did not improve as a result of repeating the kindergarten curriculum.

What Kindergarten Students Learn in Inquiry-Based Science Classrooms

The purpose of this study was to examine how participation in an inquiry-based science program impacts kindergarten students’ science learning and motivation. The study was implemented as part of a larger, federally funded research project, the Scientific Literacy Project or SLP (Mantzicopoulos, Patrick, & Samarapungavan, 2005). The study provides descriptive data on the science learning and motivation of public kindergarten students who participated in a year-long implementation of a series of inquiry-based science units as part of SLP. The students who learned science through guided-inquiry (the INQ group) completed six inquiry-based science units over the course of the school year. Data were also collected from a group of kindergarten students (the COMP group) who received regular science instruction on a similar set of topics to the INQ group but did not use the inquiry-based SLP approach to science. Data from this latter group helped us better understand the extent to which the patterns of conceptual development observed in the children who learned science through inquiry could be attributed to the features of the research-based SLP curriculum rather than other factors like maturation or the mere exposure to any science instruction. There were 186 students who participated in the study (118 INQ and 68 COMP students). A variety of measures, including researcher-developed measures of learning and motivation as well as standardized measures of achievement, were administered to both groups. Statistical analyses of pre and posttest performance showed that INQ students made significant gains across all measures of science learning from the beginning to the end of the school year. They developed an enhanced functional understanding of scientific inquiry.

Nonpromotion in Kindergarten: The Role of Cognitive, Perceptual, Visual-Motor, Behavioral, Achievement, Socioeconomic, and Demographic Characteristics

The role of cognitive, perceptual, visual-motor, behavioral, achievement, and demographic factors affecting nonpromotion at kindergarten was examined in a sample of 34 nonpromoted and 34 promoted kindergarten children of a suburban area in Northern California. The major findings of the study, part of a longitudinal follow-up study, indicated that retained students were more likely to be male, of younger age, and of lower socioeconomic status. In addition, retained students had lower IQ and preacademic achievement test scores and demonstrated increased problems in the areas of visual-motor integration, perceptual organization, and behavior. A discriminant analysis indicated that perceptual problems, inattention, age, preacademic reading achievement, and sex were factors that provided the maximum differentiation between retained and promoted students at the end of kindergarten. The findings are suggestive of interventions that may prove beneficial in preparing retained children for entry into first grade.

“We Learn How to Predict and be a Scientist”: Early Science Experiences and Kindergarten Children's Social Meanings About Science

We examine kindergarten childrens emerging social meanings about science as a function of their participation in integrated science inquiry and literacy activities associated with the Scientific Literacy Project (SLP). We describe changes in 123 SLP kindergarten childrens narrative accounts of learning science in school during three different time periods: (a) in September, before the onset of SLP activities; (b) in December, after children had participated in 17 lessons associated with 4 SLP units; and (c) in March, after children had participated in an additional 13 lessons associated with the SLP Marine Life unit. At the end of the year, we: (a) compare SLP childrens narratives about science to those of a group of children (n = 70) who only experienced the regular kindergarten program; and (b) examine differences between SLP and comparison childrens reports on a measure of learning activities in kindergarten that include science as well as privileged content areas such as reading, writing, and learning about numbers and shapes. Results support the conclusion that sustained and meaningful participation in conceptually coherent science programs is crucial for children to develop meanings about science as a distinct academic domain that comprises its own disciplinary content, language, and processes.