A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Relation Between Engagement and Achievement in Early Childhood Research

Abstract

Engagement in early childhood has been linked with later achievement, but the relation between these variables and how they are measured in early childhood requires examination. We estimated the overall association between academic engagement and achievement in children prior to kindergarten entry. Our systematic literature search yielded 13,521 reports for structured eligibility screening; from this pool of studies, we identified 21 unique data sets, with 199 effect sizes for analysis. We coded eligible studies, extracted effect sizes, accounted for effect size dependency, and used random-effects models to synthesize findings. The overall correlation between academic engagement and achievement was r = .24 (range: −.08 to −.71), and moderator analyses did not significantly predict the relation between the two constructs. This study aligns with previous research on this topic and examines issues related to these measures, their constraints, and applications as they pertain to early childhood research.

Using Audio Recordings to Reliably and Efficiently Observe Teacher Behavior Related to Explicit Instruction

“…This type of observation provides a precise measurement of teacher implementation of selected practices and captures small changes to instruction (Pustejovsky & Swan, 2015). Using direct observation to measure teacher behavior is not new to the field of education (e.g., Adamson & Wachsmuth, 2014; Lindström et al, 2021) as it is a long-standing practice in research on teachers and their students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) particularly in single-case design (Gage et al, 2010). Some have applied direct observation to record practices related to explicit instruction (e.g., Doabler et al, 2021; Pua et al, 2021).…”

Noncompliance Measurement Pre-Print, Malone et al., 2023

“…Engagement behaviors can also be tailored to student strengths and support needs (e.g., using text to speech to complete writing tasks, completing chunks of a math worksheet rather than the entire worksheet). Further, no conceivable ethical concerns exist regarding teaching or promoting individualized engagement within instructional contexts; in fact, data suggest that engagement is related to later improvements in student achievement (Lei et al, 2018;Lindström et al, 2021). Thus, if the overall goal of decreasing NC is to support a student's access to learning across a variety of contexts, engagement measurement provides a more valid and accurate measure of these skills.…”

“…As shown in Figure 1, when students are engaged, they access learning opportunities through appropriate supports and high-quality instruction, which leads to achievement (adapted from Greenwood, 1996;Lindström et al, 2021). Whereas measuring NC may provide invalid data (e.g., the number of adult demands delivered, or student support needs as opposed to true…”

Exploring classroom practices associated with greater student engagement that may benefit low-income students in the early grades

“…Engagement has been identified as a key learning process in early childhood that predicts achievement during PreK (Lindström et al, 2021) and through eighth grade (Hamre and Pianta, 2001). Engagement in early childhood settings has been broadly defined as children's developmentally appropriate interactions across multiple activity types and contexts in the learning environment (McWilliam and Casey, 2008).…”