Jessica E Vick Whittaker

University of Virginia | UVa · Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL)

This study used an observational measure to examine how individual children's engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks was associated with gains in self-regulation. A sample of 341 preschoolers was observed and direct assessments and teacher reports of self- regulation were obtained in the fall and spring of the preschool year. RESEARCH FINDINGS:...

Research Findings: The present study used data from 117 publicly funded preschool classrooms within a large, diverse, suburban county to describe teacher practices and child engagement along with classroom activity settings and children’s exposure to instructional content. Practice or Policy: Results from this investigation revealed that children s...

This randomized controlled trial examined effects of the MyTeachingPartner-Math/Science intervention on the quality and quantity of teachers’ mathematics and science instruction, and children’s mathematics and science outcomes in 140 pre-kindergarten classrooms. Teachers participated in the intervention for two years with consecutive cohorts of chi...

The present investigation examined the benefits of pre-K through the end of kindergarten for children from low-income homes who lived in a large and diverse county (n = 2,581) as well as factors associated with a reduction in benefits during the kindergarten year. Results revealed that pre-K graduates outperformed nonattenders in the areas of achie...

The present study reports associations between features of directly observed classroom processes and school readiness skills across the academic year for 1498 children enrolled in publicly funded pre-K programs in a large and diverse county. In models adjusting for a range of child and family covariates, evidence was detected for the separate, and...

Pre-kindergarten (pre-k) is thought to have both direct and indirect effects on children's outcomes in early elementary school. Direct pre-k effectsconsistently include moderate to large gains in academic skills and sometimes include increases in problem behaviors that affect acquisition of skills in school. Indirect pre-k effects assume that havin...

Neighborhood characteristics are well documented determinants of adolescent and adult health and well-being. One such neighborhood characteristic heavily explored in K-12 research is the role of residential segregation on educational outcomes. Surprisingly, little is known about how community conditions, as well as racial segregation, relate to chi...

Learning environments can support the development of foundational knowledge and promote children's attitudes toward learning and school. This study explores the relation between school enjoyment and general knowledge from preschool (2016–2017) to kindergarten (2017–2018) in 1359 children (Mage = 55, 61 months, female = 50%; 58.5% Hispanic, 17% Blac...

Despite research demonstrating the importance of mathematics achievement to children's educational success and trajectories, many children enter kindergarten without the foundational mathematics skills needed to succeed (Garcia & Weiss, 2015). Children's executive function (EF) skills and their learning-related behaviors (Anthony & Ogg, 2020) may p...

Teacher consultation is commonly used to ensure that classroom-based interventions are implemented with fidelity to achieve targeted outcomes, yet the consultation process is not well understood. Consultant-teacher relationship quality is one feature of consultation that may promote intervention outcomes—both directly and indirectly via teachers’ i...

Experiencing large differences between pre-k and kindergarten classroom contexts may affect children's academic development as they start school. This study examined differences between classroom contexts in pre-k and kindergarten (teacher-child interactions, time on academic content, and academic rigor) and associations with literacy, language, an...

This study used secondary data from the My Teaching Partner‐Math/Science 2013–2016 randomized control trial to explore whether equitable sociocultural classroom interactions (see Curenton et al., 2019) were associated with the skills of 105 four‐ and five‐year‐olds (52% boys; drawn from 20 unique video recordings of preschool teachers/classrooms; 4...

Research Findings: The present study examines the unique and joint effects of individual teacher-child relationships and overall quality of teacher-child interactions on the motivation of 2,745 kindergarten children (51% girls; ages 5–6) from an ethnically and linguistically diverse county. Teachers reported the closeness and conflict in their indi...

Continuity of pre-k and kindergarten classroom experiences is a key area of interest for early childhood researchers interested in supporting public pre-k children's development over time. To advance the empirical evidence on this topic, this study examined whether differences in classroom experiences as children transition from pre-k to kindergart...

Research Findings: This study used data from a large-scale kindergarten entry assessment (KEA) to understand how well two state screening measures, administered at school entry, predicted the first-grade reading outcomes of a large sample of first-time kindergarteners (N=5,480) at high risk for future reading failure. We examined young children’s e...

Although we know that children who are more frequently absent from school do less well academically, we know little about whether absences matter for other domains of development and whether the timing of their absences matter. In order to address these gaps in knowledge, we examined the experiences of 1,131 kindergartners (64% Hispanic, 7% Black,...

The present study examined differences in school readiness skills in the fall of kindergarten between pre-K attendees and non-attenders (n = 2581) among children in a large, diverse county. Also considered was the extent to which skills associated with pre-K enrollment varied as a function of children’s background characteristics and features of th...

The present investigation examined the links between preschool teachers’ self-reported emotional exhaustion (n = 117) with the quality of their classroom interactions and the dosage and rigor of their instruction. Research Findings: Although teachers’ experience of emotional exhaustion was not associated with the dosage and rigor of instruction, mo...

The present study considered the ways in which interactional quality in the classroom and teacher–child relationships independently and synergistically shaped the early academic, social‐behavioral, and executive function outcomes of 1,498 preschoolers from low‐income families from a large, culturally, and linguistically diverse county. The findings...

Areas of misalignment between children's experiences in preschool and kindergarten are increasingly viewed as contributing to the fade-out of preschool effects. The current study examined alignment and misalignment of classroom experiences across the transition from public pre-k into kindergarten. As part of a longitudinal cohort study, we examined...

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to refine and validate the Assessing Classroom Sociocultural Equity Scale (ACSES), an observation tool for measuring equitable sociocultural interactions in early childhood classrooms (pre-K to Grade 3) with racially minoritized learners (RMLs). Preliminary psychometric information from 142 observati...

This study used latent profile analysis to identify subgroups of children who displayed similar underlying school readiness skills at the beginning of the school year, as well as to examine whether these children transitioned across readiness profiles over the course of the school year. The sample included 899 preschool children (mean age = 53.91 m...

This investigation considered the short-term benefits of early childhood education participation at age 3 for 1,213 children from low-income families living in a large and linguistically diverse county. Although no benefits emerged for executive functioning, children who participated in formal early childhood programs at the age of 3 entered prekin...

As research continues to show the benefits of high-quality early childhood education, it is important to ensure that measures are available to assess the full impacts of these programs for student outcomes. Many achievement measures and observational measures exist, but there is a need for measures of children’s experiences at the preschool level....

Research Findings: Although interest in preschool science is growing, there are few observational measures of science teaching capable of advancing research or supporting professional growth among teachers. To address this gap, the current article presents the development and validation of the Preschool Science Observation Measure (PSOM), which ass...

Research Findings: This study explored the quality of teacher-child interactions within the context of a newly developed standardized task, Teacher-Child Structured Play Task (TC-SPT). A sample of 146 teachers and 345 children participated. Children who displayed the highest disruptive behaviors within each classroom were selected to participate. T...

This study examined fidelity of implementation in a randomized trial of Banking Time, a classroom-based intervention intended to improve children's behavior, specifically for those at-risk for developing externalizing behavior problems, through improving the quality of teacher-child interactions. The study sample comes from a randomized control tri...

A randomized controlled trial was used to examine the impact of an attachment-based, teacher-child, dyadic intervention (Banking Time) to improve children's externalizing behavior. Participants included 183 teachers and 470 preschool children (3-4 years of age). Classrooms were randomly assigned to Banking Time, child time, or business as usual (BA...

The No Child Left Behind Act requires that 95% of students in all public elementary and secondary schools are assessed in mathematics. Unfortunately, direct assessments of young students can be timely, costly, and challenging to administer. Therefore, policy makers have looked to indirect forms of assessment, such as teachers' ratings of student sk...

This compilation of five papers provides commentary from researchers devoted to the study of a variety of components that contribute to the broader domain of social and emotional development in early childhood. These components include social competence, emotional competence, behavior problems, self-regulation, and executive function. Each section...

Research Findings: This study examined the impact of MyTeachingPartner–Math/Science, a system of math and science curricula and professional development, on the quality of teachers’ interactions with children in their classrooms. Schools were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 intervention conditions (Basic: curricula providing within-activity, embedded t...

Background/Context As increasing attention is paid to preparing students to succeed in school, the development and adoption of research-based curricula have become progressively more important. However, many curricular designs lack a basis in scientific evidence; research and curricular design are frequently treated as two separate enterprises. Pu...

This study examined the relationship among baseline program and teacher characteristics and subsequent implementation of Banking Time. Banking Time is a dyadic intervention intended to improve a teacher's interaction quality with a specific child. Banking Time implementation was examined in the current study using a sample of 59 teachers and presch...

Background/Context: As increasing attention is paid to preparing students to succeed in school, the development and adoption of research-based curricula have become progressively more important. However, many curricular designs lack a basis in scientific evidence; research and curricular design are frequently treated as two separate enterprises. Pu...

The present study examined the relationship between the use of physical discipline and subsequent child behavior problems and aggressive behaviors in a sample of 69 low-income, high-risk African American mothers who had children between the ages of 3 and 25 months at the start of the study. Physical discipline use was considered in conjunction with...

As the interest in improving children's early math skills has grown, due in part to their strong associations with later overall school achievement, questions have been raised regarding teachers' knowledge about children's math abilities. The current study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the associations between teachers' judgments of...

This study explored the association between teacher–child relationship quality and Head Start children's externalizing behaviors. We also investigated the associations among teacher, student, and classroom characteristics and teacher–child relationship quality. Data were gathered from 100 Head Start children and their teachers. Teacher–child confli...

Results from a study of 100 Head Start children and their teachers suggested that teacher–child relationship quality was associated with children's classroom behaviors. Specifically, teacher–child conflict was strongly related to children's externalizing behaviors. Based on these findings, we present recommendations for the development of policies...

Early Head Start children may be more likely to exhibit difficulties with social–emotional functioning due to the high-risk environments in which they live. However, positive parenting may serve as a protective factor against the influence of risk on children's outcomes. The current study examines the effects of contextual and proximal risks on chi...

This chapter examines outcomes for infants and the youngest children in the NSCAW sample. In particular, it examines placement stability and the quality of the caregiving environment. Developmentalists have identified the early childhood period as particularly important for children's language development, social development, and readiness for form...

Foster parents are an increasingly vulnerable population, with documented parenting difficulties. The care they provide to maltreated children plays a critical role in these children's well-being. Parenting attitudes figure largely in the quality of care any parent may provide, and may be particularly salient for foster children. The current study...