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The Vancouver HIPPY Project:
Preliminary Evaluation Findings from a Multicultural Program
Lucy Le Mare
and
Karyn Audet
Faculty of Education
Simon Fraser University
The research reported herein was supported by a grant from.
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The story of the Vancouver HIPPY Project began in 1998 when a group of
women accompanied Debbie Bell (now acting Director of HIPPY Canada) on a trip to
San Diego and Tijuana as part of a Canadian International Development Association
(CIDA) funded project called Common Journeys. The women were largely minority, low
income, grassroots community activists whose purpose for the trip, in part, was to
observe programs for low-income women and children in the communities they visited.
Among the programs they saw was HIPPY, and it was this program that stood out to the
women as being something they needed and wanted in their own communities.
Upon arrival back in Vancouver, Debbie, in her capacity as Director of
Community Education Programs at Simon Fraser University (SFU), began to receive
calls on an almost daily basis from the women she had traveled with, asking for her
assistance in bringing HIPPY to Vancouver. If not for the interest and tenacity of these
women, who saw HIPPY as an avenue for improving the lives of their children, the
Vancouver project would not have occurred. Coincidentally, at the same time, the
Vancouver chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) was exploring the
possibility of launching HIPPY in Vancouver as part of their mandate to alleviate child
poverty. Independently, both NCJW and SFU contacted HIPPY founder, Avima
Lombrad, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Through this contact, NCJW learned
of the interest in HIPPY at SFU. A partnership was struck in October 1998, focused on
making HIPPY a reality in Vancouver. A community partner was found in Britannia
Community Services Centre, a unique multi-service complex located in a low-income
multicultural area of the city. Britannia was ideally located and serviced for HIPPY and
became the home of the Vancouver project.
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The Vancouver HIPPY Program was launched in November 1999 as the first
implementation of HIPPY in Canada. It is located and serves families in an area of the
city known as Grandview-Woodland, which is one of the poorest neighborhoods in
Canada. This neighborhood, which is culturally and ethnically diverse, has the highest
rate of families headed by a single parent in the city and the second highest percentage of
children (aged 0 to 12) in single parent families on social assistance (close to 20%).
Early in 2000, a coordinator and six paraprofessional home visitors representing
five different cultural communities that live in the Grandview-Woodland area were hired
as HIPPY staff. These women were known through their involvement in their own
cultural communities, which included First Nations, African, Latin American,
Vietnamese, and Near Eastern and Eastern European groups. Within weeks of being
hired, the coordinator and home visitors had recruited families from 26 different nations
(including 6 First Nations) to participate in the program. Participants were recruited
through a variety of means including handing out flyers, knocking on doors, and word of
mouth.
Home visits started in the second week of February and continued until mid-July.
In this time the home visitors covered 23 of the 30-week Age 4 program. The families
that stayed with the program completed, on average, 17 weeks. The research presented in
this chapter is based on 14 children whose families returned to HIPPY, completed the
Age 5 program and continued to live and/or send their children to school in the
Grandview-Woodland neighborhood. Several returning children either did not complete
the program or attended schools outside the neighborhood due to a family move or desire
to send their children to a non-secular school and were not included in the study.
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Design
This evaluation research included three groups of children. The HIPPY group
included children who had completed 2 years of HIPPY and one year of kindergarten.
The Preschool group included children individually matched to the HIPPY children on
teacher, sex, ethnicity, and family sociodemographic factors. Children in this group did
not participate in HIPPY but all had attended a centre based preschool program. The
third group included children who were also individually matched to the HIPPY and
Preschool children on teacher, sex, ethnicity, and family sociodemographic factors but
who had neither HIPPY nor preschool experience. Every effort was made to find in each
classroom the two best matches (preschool and no ECE program) for each HIPPY child.
We relied heavily on teachers for assistance in this regard, particularly as concerned
family sociodemographic characteristics. Because of the constraint of selecting
comparison children from the same kindergarten class as each HIPPY student, it was not
possible to meet all the criteria in all cases.
Data were collected at the end of the school year. Although the original research
design also included an assessment of each child at the outset of kindergarten, we were
unable to conduct this first assessment due to job action on the part of the British
Columbia Teacher’s Federation at that time. Consequently, we do not have kindergarten
entry data.
Participants
Within the HIPPY group there were 14 children (6 boys) whose mean age was 71
months (range = 64-77 months) at the time of assessment. The group was multi-ethnic
including Chinese, Vietnamese, European, African, and Latin American children.
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The Preschool group included 13 children (5 boys) with a mean age of 71 months
(range = 66-77 months). The No ECE Program group contained 14 children (6 boys)
who had a mean age of 70 months (range = 64-75 months) at the time of assessment.
Procedure
Ethics approval was applied for and granted by both the Simon Fraser University
ethics board and the Vancouver School Board. Introductory letters were then sent out to
the principal of each school (n=10) in which HIPPY children were enrolled. This
introductory letter explained the HIPPY program as well as the proposed evaluation
research.
School principals were then contacted by phone and a request was made for a
meeting between themselves, the kindergarten teacher of the child participating in
HIPPY, and the researchers. Further information regarding the HIPPY program and the
evaluation study were provided at that meeting and feedback from principals and teachers
regarding the proposed study was encouraged.
Teachers, with the assistance of a research assistant, chose the best comparison
children for the HIPPY student in their classrooms. Consent forms were then sent home
with every participating child. Translation of the consent form into the parent's first
language was arranged whenever necessary.
Research assistants contacted the participating teachers 1 to 2 weeks after they
had sent home the consent forms. When all consent forms had been signed by the parents
and returned to the school, an assessment date and time was arranged at the teachers’
convenience.
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Graduate student research assistants who worked individually with each child for
approximately 2 hours conducted the child assessments at the school. Teachers
completed measures on all participating children in their classrooms. These measures
were either given to the teacher at the initial meeting or mailed to them shortly
afterwards. The completed teacher measures were given to the researchers at the time of
the child assessments. If the measures had not been completed at this time, teachers were
provided with a self addressed stamped envelope to mail the questionnaires to the
researchers at the University.
Measures
Child measures: The Bracken Basic Concept Scale (Bracken, 1984) was used to
evaluate knowledge of concepts that most children acquire during the preschool and early
elementary years. Many of the concepts assessed by this measure are explicitly taught in
the HIPPY program. The test has 11 subtests, the first five of which (colors, letters,
numbers, comparisons, and shapes) are combined to form a School Readiness score. The
remaining six subtests include Direction/Position, Quantity, Size, Social/Emotional, Text,
and Time/Sequence. Administration time for this measure was about 15 minutes.
The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, 4th edition (SB4; Thorndike, Hagen, &
Sattler, 1986) was used to assess the overall cognitive development of the children. The
SB4 yields an overall Intelligence Quotient (IQ) score as well as subtest scores for Bead
Memory, Quantitative Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, and Visual. Administration time
for the SB4 was approximately 40-45 minutes.
The School Liking Interview (Le Mare, 1999) assesses children’s comfort with
going to and being in school. It is a 15 item interview that asks children to respond on a
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3-point scale (always, sometimes, never) to questions such as Do you feel happy at
school? Do you feel sad in the morning because you have to go to school?; and Do you
feel scared of any kids at school?. Each item is followed up with probes asking children
to further explain or elaborate on their responses, for example, Tell me why you feel sad
about going to school?
Teacher measures: Positive school adjustment was assessed with the Preschool
Adjustment Questionnaire (PAQ; Jewsuwan et al., 1993) which yields scores for
Prosocial Behavior, Positive Affect Within the School Setting, Peer Competence, Ego
Strength, and Adjustment to School Routines.
Play was assessed with two teacher report instruments – the Penn Interactive Peer
Play Scale (PIPPS; Fantuzo, et al., 1995) and the Preschool Play Behavior Scale (PPBS;
Coplan & Rubin, 1998). The PIPPS assesses three types of play – disruptive,
disconnected, and interactive. The PPBS assesses five somewhat different forms of play
– reticent, solitary active, solitary passive, rough, and social. Internal consistency for all
scales on both measures is above .80.
Teachers also completed a number of items asking about their perceptions of the
parents’ attitudes toward their child’s schooling, parents’ involvement in their child’s
education, and rates of absenteeism.
Results and Discussion
One-way analyses of variance were computed for all measures, comparing the
mean scores of the HIPPY group with those of the Preschool and No ECE Program
groups. Given the small sample sizes in this study, and hence the reduced statistical
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power, non-significant differences were found among the three groups on all measures.
Despite the lack of statistically significant findings, it is, nevertheless, very important to
note the pattern of results. On nearly every measure taken, HIPPY children performed or
were rated the most favorably of all groups. Mean scores on each measure for each
group are presented in Table 1.
As can be seen in Table 1, the HIPPY children, as a group performed better on
cognitive measures than either of the other two groups. On the Bracken Basic Concepts
scales HIPPY children either outperformed or equaled the performance of the Preschool
and No ECE Program children. This measure taps some of the skills that are directly
taught in the HIPPY program so this finding was an encouraging indicator that the
children were learning the content of the curriculum. Differences among groups on this
measure were particularly apparent on the Size and Social/emotional subscales.
Overall cognitive development, as indexed by performance on the Stanford Binet,
was also highest in the HIPPY group. One of the most valuable uses of IQ scores is as a
predictor of later school performance. In this sense, the mean IQ score of the HIPPY
group, which is nearly half a standard deviation higher than that of the Preschool and NO
ECE Program groups, indicates an advantage for future school success.
It is noteworthy that differences between the groups in cognitive development
were apparent at the end of the school year. This was after all children had spent a year
in the same public school program, which may have been expected to even out any
differences that existed at the start of kindergarten. Indeed, when teachers were asked to
think back to the start of the year, they did report that HIPPY children were better
prepared for kindergarten, both academically and socially, than children in the other
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groups. These differences among groups remained for the duration of the school year,
despite participation in identical kindergarten programs.
That the HIPPY children were seen by teachers to be better socially prepared for
kindergarten than other children, particularly than those who had centre based preschool
experience is very interesting. This may not have been expected given the cognitive
emphasis of the HIPPY curriculum and the fact that peer interaction is not a component
of HIPPY as it is in centre based programs. Moreover, like their academic advantage, the
social advantage of the HIPPY children remained over the duration of kindergarten. This
was evidenced in their higher scores on the Positive Adjustment Questionnaire scales,
their higher scores on Interactive Play, and their lower scores on Disruptive and Rough
Play.
Although we have no data directly addressing why the HIPPY children showed
more positive social development than children in the other groups, anecdotal comments
from parents suggest that HIPPY had a powerful and positive impact on the quality of
parent-child relationships. In group meetings, when parents had the opportunity to talk
about the impact of HIPPY on their families, they invariably spoke of how since being in
HIPPY they had developed a new understanding of their child as a person and learned
new and positive ways of interacting with their child (see Le Mare, this volume). We can
speculate that such changes in parent-child interactions had a positive impact on the
children’s social development through a variety of mechanisms. These could include
children modeling prosocial behavior learned in the context of positive interactions with
parents, enhanced feelings of self-worth in children as they experienced positive attention
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from their parents and, possibly, greater feelings of security and accompanying changes
in children’s internal working models of the social world.
The positive views that the HIPPY children held of their social worlds were seen
in their responses to the School Liking Interview. The HIPPY children were less likely to
endorse negative statements about school (e.g., being bored, picked on, sad, or lonely at
school) than children in the other groups.
Limitations and Conclusions
The findings reported here are very encouraging for a couple of reasons. First,
they support the usefulness of the measures selected for evaluating the impact of HIPPY
on young children, and in particular, a multicultural group of young children. Second,
the results suggest that participation in HIPPY positively supports the development of “at
risk” children, both cognitively and socially, and that HIPPY is as or more beneficial than
centre based preschool for this population. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind
that none of our findings are statistically significant. A sounder evaluation of the
program would include larger samples with sufficient power to determine the reliability
of the differences between groups seen here. Ideally, future evaluation efforts will also
include assessments of children prior to entering the public school system and will
continue to follow the children through their school years. The evaluation reported here
focused only on the impact of HIPPY on children. The HIPPY program theoretically has
the potential to affect many aspects of the social ecology of the child (see Le Mare, this
volume). Future evaluations should address all those aspects, including the impact of
HIPPY on caregivers, families, schools, and communities.
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References
Bracken, 1984
Coplan, R. and Rubin, K. (1998).Exploring and assessing non-social play in the
preschool: The development and validation of the Preschool Play Behavior Scale. Social
Development, 7, 72-91.
Fantuzo, J., Sutton-Smith, B., Coolahan, K.C., Manz, P.H., Canning, S. &
Debnam, D. (1995). Assessment of preschool play interaction behaviors in young low-
income children: Penn interactive peer play scale. Early Childhood Research Quarterly,
10, 105-120.
Jewsuwan et al., 1993
Le Mare, L. (1999). Temperament and socio-emotional adjustment in the early
childhood classroom. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for
Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM, April 15-18.
Thorndike, Hagen, & Sattler, 1986
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Table 1. Mean scores on all variables for the HIPPY, Preschool, and No ECE Program
groups.
MEASURE
HIPPY
(n=14)
Preschool
(n=13)
No ECE
(n=14)
Bracken Basic Concepts Total Score
87
86
81
Bracken - Direction/position
7
7
7
Bracken - Quantitative
8
7.5
6.6
Bracken - Size
9
6.6
7.7
Bracken - Social/emotional
9.5
7.7
7
Bracken - School readiness
8
7.5
7
Bracken - Text
9
8
8.9
Bracken - Time
8
8.3
6.5
Academic prep. for kindergarten (teacher)
3.2
2.8
2.7
Social prep. for kindergarten (teacher)
3.5
2.9
2.7
Overall adjustment to kindergarten (teacher)
3.8
3.5
3.4
Days absent
3.1
3.4
3.9
Stanford Binet (SB4) IQ total
102
95
96
SB4 visual IQ
105
100
102
SB4 memory
102
96
94
SB4 quantitative IQ
105
96
98
SB4 verbal IQ
94
92
91
Parent involvement (teacher report)
1.9
1.4
1.7
Disruptive play (PIPPS)
23
26
27
Rough play (PPBS)
3.5
4.3
4.7
Interactive play (PIPPS)
27
26
24
Positive Adjustment Questionnaire (PAQ)
PAQ - Positive affect
17
16
15
PAQ - Positive adjustment
31
29
29
PAQ - Ego strength
24
23
19
PAQ - Peer competence
23
23
21
PAQ - Pro-social behavior
21
19
19
Child Interview – 1=”always” 3=”never”
Child Interview - Bored at school
2.8
2.3
2.7
Child Interview – Don’t want to go to school
2.8
2.4
2.6
Child Interview – Picked on at school
2.3
1.7
2
Child Interview – Sad at school
2.7
2.3
2.5
Child Interview – Kids are mean to me
2.4
1.9
2.2
Child Interview – Sad in the morning
2.7
2.2
2.9
Child Interview – Lonely at school
2.7
2.3
2.9
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