Instructional Support and Academic Skills: Impacts of INSIGHTS in Classrooms With Shy Children

Meghan McCormick, Hope White, Parham Horn, Rachel Lacks, Erin O’Connor, Elise Cappella, Sandee McClowry

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Research Findings: This study investigated how mean classroom-level shyness scores moderated the impacts of INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament on instructional support and students’ math and reading skills in kindergarten and 1st-grade classrooms. INSIGHTS is a temperament-based social-emotional learning intervention with teacher, parent, and classroom programs. A total of 22 low-income urban elementary schools, 90 teachers, and 435 children were included in the study. Schools were randomly assigned to INSIGHTS or an attention-control condition. Multilevel modeling demonstrated larger impacts of INSIGHTS on instructional support in 1st-grade classrooms with greater mean classroom-level shyness scores. A further set of multilevel analyses showed larger impacts of INSIGHTS on math skills for students in classrooms with greater mean classroom-level shyness scores. Practice or Policy: Results suggest the importance of considering temperament at the classroom level when deciding how to allocate limited resources to the implementation of temperament-based intervention and/or social-emotional learning programs. Moreover, providing professional development supports to teachers of shy students—who are at risk for poorer instruction and academic skills—should be considered by policymakers and practitioners.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)691-715
Number of pages25
JournalEarly Education and Development
Volume29
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 4 2018

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Education
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology

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