2001 Research Scholars
Rebecca J. Bulotsky | Rebecca Cortes | Jason T. Downer | Hilary A. Raikes | Ann M. Stacks | Stacy A. Storch
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* 2001-2002 ** 2001-2003
Rebecca J. Bulotsky**
Project Title:
The Relationship Between Contextually Relevant Assessment of Emotional
and Behavioral Adjustment in Head Start and Children's Social Adjustment
and Academic Achievement in Primary Grades
Grantee:
Rebecca J. Bulotsky
Project Funding Years:
2001-2003
University Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Graduate School of Education
Psychology in Education Division
Project Abstract:
The goal of this project is to use a developmental-ecological framework
to better understand the relationship between preschool children's
emotional and behavioral adjustment and their social adjustment, academic
achievement, special education placement, and grade retention in the
primary grades. An additional study objective is to use the information
about these relationships to stimulate dialogue and increase awareness
among Head Start teachers, primary school teachers, and parents of
the educational experiences and trajectories of preschool children
with early adjustment difficulties. The aim of this objective is to
interpret research findings collaboratively and to determine ways
that program activities and policies can best promote children's well-being
and school readiness through early identification and intervention
in Head Start. This study, a follow-up to a previous study of Head
Start children's behavioral and emotional adjustment, will assess
how the complex context of child development, including poverty, Head
Start classroom characteristics, and the transition into elementary
school, affects later child development and functioning. Participants
in the present study include 938 of the original participants, who
are now children in the second grade. During the 1998-1999 school
year, participants' teachers completed the Adjustment Scale for Preschool
Intervention (ASPI). These results, along with other demographic information,
will be used in conjunction with the Adjustment Scale for Children
and Adolescents (ASCA), which will be completed by participants' second
grade teachers. These teacher rating scales assess children's behavior
across multiple situations. Indicators of primary grade school adjustment,
academic performance, and demographic and contextual covariates will
also be examined. Results from this study can help guide Head Start's
mental health agenda and inform effective and appropriate intervention
and kindergarten transition policies for this high-risk population.
Sample:
n=938 former Head Start children (1998-1999 Head Start cohort)
Measures:
Child
Reading, Mathematics, Science Stanford Achievement Tests (SAT-9)
Records of special education placement for learning-related disabilities
and grade retention
Demographic information
Teacher
Adjustment Scale for Preschool Intervention (ASPI)
Adjustment Scale for Children and Adolescents (ASCA)
Report-card grades of classroom behavior, suspensions, truancy, and
receipt of special education services for serious emotional disturbance
Family
Demographic information, including family structure, parent educational
level, parental employment
Census information on neighborhood density of poverty
Rebecca Cortes*
Project Title:
Parents' Emotional Awareness and Childrearing Practices: Implications
for Low-Income Children's Social Emotional Competence
Grantee:
Rebecca Cortes
Project Funding Years:
2001-2002
University Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
Human Development and Family Studies
Project Abstract:
This study is designed to examine relations among low-income parents'
awareness of their emotions, dimensions of their specific emotion-related
childrearing practices (including discipline, parent involvement,
and consistency), children's emotional knowledge, and children's social
emotional competence. The study will focus on those childrearing practices
that are positively associated with children's social emotional competence,
including emotional support, involvement, and consistency. Researchers
hypothesize that children who demonstrate a high understanding of
emotion and whose parents have a supporting emotion coaching style
will show greater emotional competence than children with a low understanding
of emotion and whose parents have a non-supportive emotion coaching
style. In addition, parents who report themselves as high on emotional
awareness will use supportive versus non-supportive or mixed emotion-coaching
styles. Participants include 90 caregivers and children drawn from
two Head Start programs. These participants represent a subsample
of a larger randomized clinical trial funded by a Head Start-University
Partnership grant. Pre-test data collected during this project will
be used and analyzed in this study, including information from parent
interviews, child assessments, and teacher reports of children's behavior.
The measures used in this study were adapted for this specific population
and tap into specific emotion-related childrearing practices. Study
results are expected to influence the design of more effective preventive
interventions that promote low-income children's social-emotional
competence and enhance knowledge concerning the dimensions and role
of emotion-related childrearing practices and care giving of low-income,
minority families.
Sample:
N=90 children and caregivers from a larger intervention study
Measures:
Child
Challenging Situations Task (CST)
Kusche Emotional Inventory (KEI)
Preschool Kindergarten Behavior Scale (PKBS)
Parent
Thoughts and Feelings about Emotions Scale for Parents (TFES-P)
Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale (CCNES) adaptation
Jason T. Downer**
Project Title:
Describing and Defining Dads: A Father's Role in Promoting Head Start
Children's School Readiness
Grantee:
Jason T. Downer
Project Funding Years:
2001-2003
University Affiliation:
University of South Carolina
Department of Psychology
Project Abstract:
Researchers plan to use a multi-dimensional, ecological approach to
study father involvement within a low-income, minority population
to answer several questions about influences that deter or contribute
to fathers' involvement in children's learning and development. Specifically,
the impact of father-child relationships on children's school readiness
will be investigated. The researchers hypothesize that consistent,
positive fathering has a positive impact on children's development
and outcomes in the form of school readiness. Child cognitive, social,
and emotional competency domains will be examined. Participants in
Year 1 of the study will include 50 families (including father, mother
and child). For these 50 families, father-child play interactions
will be videotaped and coded, and a comprehensive father involvement
interview will be completed. Additionally, a battery of instruments
will be used with both parents to assess individual and family characteristics,
the fathers' sense of their own ability to influence their children's
educational outcome, and the quality of the parenting alliance. Researchers
will also assess children's language development, peer play interactions,
and ability to self-regulate in the school setting, mainly by teacher
reports. Across both Year 1 and 2, an effort will be made to recruit
a total of 100 Head Start fathers in order to provide a more representative
sample. These fathers will complete interviews and questionnaires
similar to above, but with less detail and without simultaneously
collecting child data. By holding focus groups with Head Start parents
and teachers in Year 2, the researchers also hope to obtain a better
understanding of Head Start parents' perceptions of the paternal role
in children's development, which will ultimately inform the synthesis
of support services and interventions to promote and facilitate positive
father-child relationships and father involvement. These semi-structured
focus groups will cover discussion of Year 1 findings, perspectives
on fatherhood and feelings about potential interventions to promote
positive father-child relationships.
Sample:
n=50 families (including father, mother, and child)
n=100 fathers
Measures:
Child
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Third Edition (PPVT-III)
Father
About Being a Parent Scale (ABPS)
Parenting Alliance Measure (PAM)
Dyadic Parent-Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS)
Both Parents
Personal and Family Characteristics Questionnaire (FNCQ)
Father Involvement Scale (FIS)
Family Involvement Questionnaire (FIQ)
Teacher
Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC)
Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS)
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Hilary A. Raikes**
Project Title:
Mother's Self-Efficacy as a Protective Factor for Secure Attachments
for Low-Income Children
Grantee:
Hilary A. Raikes
Project Funding Years:
2001-2003
University Affiliation:
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Department of Psychology
Preferred address:
1501 A St., #1
Lincoln, NE 68502
Phone: (402) 474-0257
Email: abbieraikes@hotmail.com
Project Abstract:
This proposal will examine the relation of mother's self-efficacy,
perception of resources, family risk and mother's depression levels
to attachment security among 12 to 24-month-old children enrolled
in the Lincoln Action Program Early Head Start program in Lincoln,
NE. Support for this line of inquiry comes from two previous bodies
of literatures. First, substantial work indicates that mothers' psychological
adjustment and state of mind can influence the development of attachment
relationships with children (Belsky, 1999). Second, more recent work
(Teti & Gelfand, 1991; Jackson, 1998) demonstrates that mothers'
self-efficacy can moderate the effects of stress on maternal interactions
with children, and that self-efficacy is influenced by a mother's
perception of available resources and the level of family risk. This
proposal hypothesizes that mothers with higher levels of self-efficacy
will have more securely attached children, and that mothers who perceive
themselves as having adequate levels of financial resources will have
higher levels of self-efficacy, which in turn will influence attachment
security. The role of family risk in affecting mothers' self-efficacy
will also be examined. Further, this study will explore the possibility
that children's effectance is directly influenced by maternal self-efficacy,
and hypothesizes that mothers with higher levels of self-efficacy
will have children with higher levels of effectance. In order to test
these hypotheses, 100 mothers will be asked to complete the Dunst
Family Resource Scale (Dunst & Leet, 1987), the Pearlin Mastery
Scale (Pearlin & Schooler, 1987), and the CES-D (Radloff, 1977),
and will be assisted in completing the Attachment Q-Sort (Waters &
Deane, 1985) for their 12 to 24-month-old children enrolled in Early
Head Start. Levels of family risk, data continually collected by the
Early Head Start program, will be used in data analysis and discussion.
Sample:
n=100 mothers of 12- to 24-month old Early Head Start children
Measures:
Child
Attachment Q-Sort
Mother
Pearlin Mastery Scale
Dunst Family Resource Scale
Family Assessment Tool
CES-D
Ann M. Stacks *
Project Title:
Children's Aggressive Behavior in a Head Start Sample: Its Relation
to Caregiver Factors and Children's Attachment Representations
Grantee:
Ann M. Stacks
Project Funding Years:
2001-2002
University Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University
Project Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to investigate caregiver psychological
and environmental factors that contribute to parenting attitudes,
attachment representations in their children, and subsequent child
behavior. Sixty-three caregiver-child dyads participated in the study.
Caregiver factors included the perceived availability of social support
and satisfaction with social support, life stress, parenting attitudes,
and caregiver psychological well being. The Six-Year Attachment Doll
Play Attachment Classification System (George & Solomon, 1990,
1996, 2000) was used to assess children’s attachment representations.
Teachers and caregivers reported children’s aggressive behavior.
Children’s sex did not account for differences in child behavior. The caregiver’s cultural background did not account for differences in parenting. Due to the small number of children classified as secure (N=4), this category was dropped from the analysis. Caregiver psychological well-being was associated with children’s attachment representations. Social support network size, satisfaction with social support, and life stress, and parenting attitudes were not associated with children’s attachment representations. Caregiver environmental factors were significant predictors of empathy and role reversal, but were not significant predictors of values related to corporal punishment, inappropriate expectations, or power-independence issues. Children’s aggression at home and at school did not vary as a function of attachment representations.
Sample:
N=30 families of children attending full day-full-year Head
Start
N=33 families of children attending half-day Head Start.
Measures:
Child
Six-Year Attachment Doll Play Classification System
Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL)
Behavior Assessment System for Children, Teacher Rating Scales (BASC-TRS)
Parent
Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ)
Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI)
Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory-2 (AAPI-2)
Schedule of Recent Events
Parent Demographics Questionnaire
Stacy A. Storch **
Project Title:
Assessment of Curriculum Practices in Head Start
Grantee:
Stacey A. Storch
Project Funding Years:
2001-2003
University Affiliation:
State University of New York (SUNY), Stony Brook
Department of Psychology
Project Abstract:
This study proposes to develop a Preschool Curriculum Q-sort to be
used in assessing the degree to which engagement in particular classroom
activities by teachers promotes language and literacy development
in Head Start children. Specific objectives of the study include:
(a) developing a Q-sort measure to assess preschool curriculum practices
that is practical to use and comprehensive in measuring literacy and
language activities; (b) instructing teachers in the use of the Q-sort
and having them complete it at specific points during the school year;
(c) validating the measure using independent observers; and (d) assessing
the degree to which teachers' responses to Q-sort items relate to
student growth in school readiness skills, particularly emergent literacy.
The first year of the project will consist of two phases. In the fall,
a pilot group of Head Start and private preschool teachers will form
a focus group to collaborate with the researchers in developing, testing,
and revising the curriculum measure. In the winter and spring of the
first year, a sample of approximately 40 Head Start teachers and classroom
aides from 20 classrooms will complete the Q-sort. Children from these
classrooms will be tested on the measures listed below upon their
entrance to and exit from Head Start. These classrooms will also be
observed using the ECERS-R and the Observational Code for Literacy
Interactions. The second year of the study will involve an expansion
of the Q-sort to involve approximately 80 Head Start teachers, who
will complete the Q-sort three times during the school year. In addition,
a subsample of approximately 160 children will be randomly selected
from half of these classrooms and assessed using the battery of child
measures at two time points during the Head Start year, once at Head
Start entry and once at Head Start exit.
Sample:
First Year
Pilot group: approximately 6 teachers
Winter & Spring sample: 40 teachers and aides, and approximately
200 children
Second Year
80 teachers and a subsample of approximately 160 children from half
of these classrooms
Measures:
Child
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III) (Form A)
The Get Ready to Read! Screen (RTR)
McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities- Draw-a-Design
Leiter-R, AM Battery, Attention Sustained Subtest
FACES: Color Names and Counting; Story and Print Concepts
Woodcock Johnson-Revised (Achievement Tests): Letter-Word Ident.;
Applied Problems; Dictation
Teacher
Classroom Activities Checklist
Classroom
Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale- Revised (ECERS-R)
Observational Code for Literacy Interactions