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Differential Social and AcademicEffects of Developmentally AppropriatePractices and BeliefsIthel Jones a & Dominic F. Gullo ba Florida State Universityb University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeePublished online: 03 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Ithel Jones & Dominic F. Gullo (1999) Differential Social and Academic Effects ofDevelopmentally Appropriate Practices and Beliefs, Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 14:1,26-35, DOI: 10.1080/02568549909594749

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Journal of Research in Childhood Education

1999. Vol. 14. No. ICopyright 1999 hy the Association for

Childhood Education In ternational

0256-8543/99

Differential Social and Academic Effects ofDevelopmentally Appropriate Practices and Beliefs

Ithel JonesFlor ida State University

Dominic F. GulloUniversity of Wisconsin-Milwa ukee

Abstract. This investigation examined the prevalence ofdevelopmentally appro­priate practices in the primary grades and the effects ofteachers' developmentallyappropriate beliefs and practices on 1st-grade students' social skills and aca­demic achievement in the areas oflanguage and mathematics. The participantswere 293 first-grade students attending four inner-city public schools and theirteachers. An instrument was administered to the teachers in order to measure thedegree to wh ich their beliefs and instructional practices reflect the tenets ofdevelopmentally appropriate practices. Academic achievement tests were admin­istered to the 1st-grade students, and their social behavior was assessed using theSocial Skills Rating S cale (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). The analyses examineddifferences in the academ ic achievement and social skills of students who weretaught by teachers whose beliefs and practices were consistent with developmen­tally appropriate practices, developmentally inappropriate practices, and beliefsand practices that fell between appropriate and inappropriate on the assessmentscale. The findings suggested that teachers' beliefs were not consistent with theirpractices. Students taught by teachers who held developmentally inappropriatebeliefs had significantly higher scores on measures oflanguage. Students whoseteachers adopted practices that were nei ther appropriate nor inappropriate hadsignificantly higher mathematical achi evement scores. The results also indicatedthat both developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices were associated withpositive social skill ratings of children by their teachers. The findings arediscussed in terms of the lack of congruence between 1st-grade teachers' beliefsand classroom practices.

The publication of the National Associationfor the Education of Young Children(NAEYC) position statements on develop­mentally appropriate practices (Bredekamp,1987; Bredekamp & Copple, 1997) has hada major impact on the field of early child­hood education. These guidelines repre-

Authors'Note. This study was fund ed in part by a grantfrom the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. Th e aut hors wouldlike to acknowledge Martha Wheeler-Fair , Principal atthe Frances Starms Early Childhood Center, as well asthe staff, families , and children of th e Frances StarmsEarly Childhood Center . Thanks also are expressed tothe principals, 1st-grade teachers, and children whoparticipated in this study. Correspondence concerningthis papershould beaddressed to Ithel Jones, The FloridaState University, Department of Educational Theory &Practice, 115 Stone Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306.

sent the consensus of opinion on the statusof current knowledge and thinking in thefield. According to the authors, developmen­tally appropriate practice (DAP) is a child­centered, cognitive developmental approachto early childhood education. The concept ofdevelopmental appropriateness can be sepa­rated into three dimensions: age, individualgrowth patterns, and cultural factors. Ratherthan being dichotomous, the guidelines sug­gest that individual educational programsand classes fall along a continuum frommore to less developmentally appropriate(Bredekamp & Copple, 1997).

Numerous school districts and individualschools have adopted policies that supportthe practices advocated in NAEYC's posi-

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tion statement. Indeed, many preschooland kindergarten programs exemplify de­velopmentally appropriate practices. Re­cently, however, early childhood educatorshave begun to facilitate continuity amongpreschool, kindergarten, and the primarygrades by promoting the extension of DAPto the primary grades (Goldstein, 1997;Holmes & Morrison, 1994; Jang &Mangione, 1994; Perlmutter & Burell, 1995).Whereas most practitioners would agreethat informal learning and an integratedcurriculum is appropriate for the preschooland kindergarten years, this preference isnot as apparent when children in the pri­mary grades are considered (Krogh, 1997 ).Furthermore, despite an abundance of'theo­retical support for the value of developmen­tally appropriate practice in the primarygrades, there is a lack of empirical researchto document its effects.

Developmentally Appropriate PracticeDevelopmentally appropriate practice, asdefined in the NAEYC position statements(Bredekamp, 1987; Bredekamp & Copple,1997),is based on a child-centered cognitivedevelopmental perspective. Such a per­spective is based on the notion that childrenlearn by actively constructing their ownknowledge through interacting with mate­rials, peers, and adults. Using this ap­proach, educational decisions are guided byquestions related to the age , individual,social, and cultural appropriateness of keyexperiences. Such an approach is in directcontrast to the more rigid teacher-centeredapproaches that characterize many elemen­tary school programs.

The NAEYC guidelines describe prac­tices for the care and schooling of childrenfrom birth through age 8, yet most of theliterature on developmentally appropriatepractices focuses on either preschool or kin­dergarten settings. Researchers have ex­amined various aspects of DAP, includingthe developmental appropriateness of kin­dergarten teachers' beliefs and practices(e.g., Charlesworth, Hart , Burts, &Hernandez, 1991; Charlesworth, Hart,Burts, Thomasson, Mosley, & Fleege, 1993),

as well as the social and academic effects ofDAP (e.g., Burts et al., 1993; Marcon, 1992;Sherman & Mueller, 1996). Findings fromthese studies, and others, suggest that cur­ricular approaches that incorporate devel­opmentally appropriate practice lead topositive educational outcomes. Such aproposition, however, is not necessarily ap­plicable to the primary sector, because ofthe paucity of research on the developmen­tal appropriateness of primary teachers'beliefs and practices and the associatededucational outcomes.

Teachers' beliefs about DAP refer totheir theoretical agreement with develop­mentally appropriate guidelines. Arguably,one key element in determining whetherDAP is implemented in the classroom islikely to be the beliefs that early childhoodteachers hold about such practices. Extantresearch on the developmental appropri­ateness of kindergarten teachers' beliefsand practices (e.g., Charlesworth et al.,1991; Charlesworth et al. , 1993; Hyson,Hirsh-Pasek, & Rescorla, 1990; Smith &Shepard, 1988) suggests a lack of congru­ence between teachers' beliefs and prac­tices. That is, while many teachers holdbeliefs that are consistent with develop­mentally appropriate practices, they do notalways implement such an approach in theirclassrooms. It seems, therefore, that theassumption that adopting developmentallyappropriate practices is contingent uponteachers' beliefs about early childhood edu­cation belies the complexity of the beliefs­and-practices relationship . Thus, therelationship between 1st-grade teachers' de­velopmentally appropriate beliefs and prac­tices and the potential influence on 1st-gradestudents' academic achievement is unclear.

Possibly the most fundamental and im­portant question concerning developmen­tally appropriate practice is its effect onchildren's cognitive development. Again,most studies examining this aspect havebeen conducted with children at the pre­school or kindergarten level. The findingsreported in these studies generally suggestthat classrooms characterized by child ini­tiation lead to an enhancement ofchildren's

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JONES AND GULLO

cognitive competence in areas such as cre­ativity and language development. Forexample, Hirsh-Pasek, Hyson, and Rescoria(1990) report that children in child-initi­ated classrooms had higher scores on mea­sures of creativity than children inacademically oriented classrooms. Simi­larly, developmentally appropriate pro­grams have been associated with improvedlanguage outcomes (e.g., Dunn, Beach, &Kontos, 1994; Marcon, 1992; Sherman &Mueller, 1996). A reasonable assumption isthat similar outcomes would be observedwith 1st-grade students who participate indevelopmentally appropriate programs.

Several studies have utilized the moretraditional measures of achievement, suchas achievement tests or report cards, forexamining the benefits ofDAP. Interpreta­tion of these studies is somewhat difficultdue to the equivocal nature ofthe findings.For example, in one study, developmentallyappropriate practice was associated withenhanced performance in the areas ofread­ing and mathematical achievement(Sherman & Mueller, 1996). In contrast,Stipek, Feiler, Daniels, and Milburn (1995)report that preschool and kindergarten stu­dents who attended academically orientedclassrooms had higher literacy achievementscores than those who attended child-initi­ated programs. Finally, the finding of nodifferences in academic achievement as afunction ofthe developmental appropriate­ness of a preschool program (Hyson et al. ,1990) adds to the complexity ofdeterminingthe academic benefits of developmentallyappropriate practice.

The central focus of studies that haveincluded participants who attend primarygrades has been to document the lastingeffects of children's participation in devel­opmentally appropriate preschool and kin­dergarten programs. Frede and Barnett(1992) found that children who had at­tended developmentally appropriate pre­school programs also had superior academicperformance in 1st grade. Similarly, in astudy of children of low socioeconomic sta­tus, participants who attended developmen­tally appropriate kindergarten programs

tended to also have improved readingachievement scores in 1st grade (Burts etal., 1993) . In short, attendance in DAPprograms appears to improve children'sprimary grade academic achievement. Inturn, this suggests that there may be last­ing benefits associated with DAP. If this isthe case , then the continuity of experiencesbetween kindergarten and the primarygrades could be an important factor . Thatis, iflst-grade teachers adopt practices thatare consistent with the developmental ap­proaches implemented by their kindergar­ten colleagues, then there should becorresponding gains in 1st-grade students'academic achievement. Predictably, 1st­grade students taughtby teachers who adoptpractices that are consistent with develop­mentally appropriate guidelines shouldobtain higher scores on measures of aca­demic achievement.

Clearly, there is a lack of research todocument the potential benefits of adoptingdevelopmentally appropriate practices atthe primary grade level. Based on this lackof empirical evidence, therefore, it seemeddesirable to undertake a study designed toanalyze the social and academic effects ofteachers' developmentally appropriate be­liefs and practices. The current study ex­plores the relationship between DAP andstudent achievement among 1st-grade stu­dents in a large urban location, using datafrom an ongoing evaluation project.

The purpose of the study was to examinethe prevalence ofDAP in the primary gradesand to determine the effects of teachers' de­velopmentally appropriate beliefs and devel­opmentallyappropriate practices on 1st-gradestudents' social skills and academic achieve­ment. This study examined outcomes in theareas oflanguage arts and mathematics. Itwas predicted that children in child-initiatedclassrooms would obtain higher scores onmeasures of language, mathematics, andsocial skills than children in teacher-directed,academicallyoriented classrooms. Similarly,itwas predicted that1st-gradestudentswhoseteachers hold beliefs that are closer on thecontinuumtoDAP,asreflectedintheNAEYCguidelines, would obtain higher scores on

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DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC EFFECTS

measures of language, mathematics, andsocial skills than children whose teachershold beliefs that reflect the other end of theDAP continuum.

MethodThis study's data were collected from anongoing evaluation project examining theimpact of a specific early childhood educa­tion program implemented in a large, ur­ban school district. This early childhoodprogram was designed to integrate the earlyschool experiences of young children intocomprehensive networks ofsupport for chil­dren and their families . The program serves3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children who , at theend oftheir kindergarten year, transfer toother city-wide schools. Thus, the four city­wide elementary schools participating inthis study were selected because many oftheir 1st-grade students had attended theprekindergarten and kindergarten earlychildhoodprogramthatwas partofthe project.

ParticipantsThe participants in this study attended fourpublic elementary schools in a large urbanschool district in the Midwe stern UnitedStates . Thirteen intact 1st-grade classesparticipated in the study, for a total samplesize of 293 children (153 males and 140females). The participants were predomi­nantly African American, and their teacherswere all degreed early childhood educators.

ProcedureTraining sessions. First-grade teachers

who had volunteered to participate in thestudy were invited to a series ofthree train­ing meetings. The purpose of these meet­ings was to explain the purpose ofthe study,select appropriate achievement measures,and provide training in administering theassessments. The objectives and proce­dures for the study were discussed duringthe first meeting. The achievement mea­sures that were subsequently selected wereconsidered relevant and appropriate in re ­lation to the instructional approaches us edby the 1st-grade teachers .

Test administration. The 1st-gradeteach-

ers administered the academic achievementtests during the last trimester of the schoolyear, when all ofthe students were complet­ing 1st grade. The teachers also completed asocial skills ratingsystem (Gresham & Elliott,1990), as well as a scale designed to mea­sure the degree to which their instructionalpractices and beliefs reflected the tenets ofdevelopmentally appropriate practice(Burts, Hart, Charlesworth, & Kirk, 1990) .

MeasuresThe study examined outcomes in two majordomains: academic achievement and socialskills. The instruments used to measureeach are described below.

Academic achievement. The 1st-gradelevel ofthe Integrated Assessment System(lAS ) was used to measure children'sachievement in mathematics and languagearts. The lAS is a series of performancetasks that offer a comprehensive view ofstudent achievement. The lAS tasks assesslearning in an integrated holistic way asopposed to the testing of specific and dis­crete skills . The lAS measures were indi­vidually administered to children by therelevant 1st-grade teachers, who followedthe procedures from the manual.

The language arts lAS assessment con­sisted of a series of reading passages andguided writing activities that assess read­ing comprehension, writing performance,and higher-level thinking. The languagearts instrument, therefore, yielded a totalof three scores: response to reading (RTR),management of content (MOC), and com­mand oflanguage (COL). The three scoreswere rated on a 4-point scale ranging froma low of 1 to a high of 4. The RTR is anassessment of reading comprehension as itis reflected in the student's writing. MOCmeasures how well the student stays fo­cused on a reading and writing task anduses print to communicate. Finally, COLmeasures a student's ability to use gram­mar, punctuation, meaning, and spellingwithin a rel evant writing task.

The mathematics lAS test consisted of aseries of problems and situations requiringthe use of mathematics for their solution.

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The tasks allow the children to produceoriginal responses in writing as they selectstrategies to solve problems. The math­ematics lAS yielded a total of five scores:mathematics holistic scor e (MHS), math­ematical reasoning (MR), mathematicalconcept knowledge (MCK), mathematicalcommunication (MC), and mathematicalprocedures (MP). The MHS score for eachstudent is based upon an overall impressionofthe student's work and is evaluated on ascale that ranges from a high of6 to a low of1. According to the test manual, the holis­tic score evaluates the student's ability touse problem-solving skills in developingconcepts or solving real-world problems.The other four dimensions were evaluatedon a four-point scale ranging from a high of4 to a low of 1. The dimension of MRassesses a student's ability to use reason­ing in problem solving. MCK assesses thestudent's knowledge and understanding ofthe mathematical concepts addressed inthe task. MC, on the other hand, measuresa student's ability to communicate clearlyin mathematics by using language, termi­nology, and symbolism. Finally, MP is anassessment of the student's ability to usemathematical procedures, including com­putation, correctly.

Social skills. The social skills ratingscale (Gresh am & Elliott, 1990)was used toassess students' social behaviors . This in­strument measures children's social skillsin the sub-domains of cooperation, asser­tion, and self-control. The questionnaireasks teachers to indicate how often eachstudent exhibits certain social skills, andasks them to rate how important thoseskills are for success in their classroom.Teachers are requested to indicate how of­ten students exhibit problem behaviors aswell as to rate their academic competence.Test-retest reliability coefficients rangingfrom .75 to .93 have been reported for thesubscales (Gresham & Elliott, 1990).

The social skills questionnaire includeditems such as the following:

Controls temper in conflict situations.Invites others to join in activities.Receives criticism well .

Ignores peer distractions when doingclass work.

Teacher Beliefs and PracticesThe 1st-grade teachers completed a ques­tionnaire designed to measure the nature oftheir instructional practices as well as theirbeliefs about developmentally appropriatepractices (see Burts, Hart, Charlesworth, &Kirk, 1990) . This instrument asks teachersto rate, on a scale of 1 to 5, the importanceof various school and curricular practicesthat are considered developmentally ap­propriate or developmentally inappropri­ate. In addition, a section of the instrumentasks teachers to indicate, on a scale of 1-5,how often their pupils participate in vari­ous instructional activities. This question­naire included items such as the following:

1 = not very important at all ; 2 = not veryimportant; 3 = fairly important; 4 = veryimportant; 5 = extremely important

It is __for school activities to be respon­sive to individual differences in development.

It is that each curriculum area betaught as separate subjects at separate times.

It is __ for kindergarten students tolearn to read.

ResultsTeachers' BeliefsData from the teachers' beliefs and prac­tices instrument was used to determine theextent to which teachers' beliefs were inagreement with the standards advocatedby the NAEYC guidelines. As expected, theprimary teachers varied in their agreementwith the NAEYC guidelines. This informa­tion was therefore used to determinewhether the 1st-grade students had beentaught by teachers who had developmen­tally appropriate beliefs (n=87 ), develop­mentally inappropriate beliefs (n=110), orbeliefs that were neither developmentallyappropriate nor inappropriate (n=96). Thedata were then analyzed using analyses ofvariance (ANOVA). The grouping variablewas 1st-grade teachers' beliefs about devel­opmentally appropriate practices (DAP,DIP, or average), and the outcome variableswere children's academic achievement in

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reading, F(2 , 248) =3.12, p <.05 , manage­ment of content, F(2, 248) = 3.73, p < .05,and command of language measures, F(2,248) =4.09, P < .05. Su bsequent post hoccomparisons revealed that students whohad been taught by teache rs who had devel­opmentally inappropriate beliefs had sig­nificantly higher scores on each of the threemeasures than students whose teachershad beliefs that fell between developmen­tally appropriate and developmentally in­appropriate on the assessment scale.

Our analyses also examined the effect ofteachers' beliefs about developmentallyappropriate practices on 1st-grade students'social skills. Descriptive statistics for thismeasure are reported in Table 3. There wasa significant difference in the scores on thesocial skills measure obtained by the threegroups of students, F(2, 247) = 21.6 6, P <.01. Students whose teachers had develop­mentally appropriate beliefs had signifi­cantly higher scores on the social skillsmeasure than those students whose teach­ershad developmentally inappropri at e orbeliefs that fell between developmentallyappropriate an d developmentally inappro­priate on the assessment scale.

DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC EFFECTS

mathematics and language, and children'ssocial ski lls . Based on an analysis of stem­and-leafplots and normal probability plots,it was judged that the data approximated anormal distribution. The analyses were allconducted usingthe computer package SPSS(release 6.1).

The analyses examined the relationshipamong teachers' beliefs about developmen­tally appropriate practices and 1st-gradestudents' mathematical achievement. Here,there were five mathematical achievementmeasures of interest: mathematics holisticscore(MHS),mathematical reasoning(MR),mathematical concept knowledge (MCK),mathematical communication (MC), andmathematical procedures (MP). Descrip­tive statistics for these measures are out­lined in Table 1. There were no significantdifferences in the subdomain mathematicalscores among the three groups of students.

Our analyses also examined the effect ofteachers' beliefs about developmentallyappropriate practices on 1st-grade students'achievement in language. The three lan­guage achievement measures of interestwere response to reading (RTR), manage­ment of content (Ma C), and command oflanguage (COL). Descriptive statistics forthese measures are outlined in Table 2. Teachers' PracticesThere was a significant difference in the Data from the teachers' beliefs and prac­scores ofthe three groups on the response to tices instrument were used to determine

Table 1Means and Standard Deviation for Measures of lsi-Grade Students' Mathematics

Performance by Teachers' Beliefs and Instructional Practices

Teachers' Beliefs Te a che r s ' P r a c t ice s

Mathematics DAP Average DIP

Holistic Score 3.63 3.61 3.75(Range=1-6) (1.06) (1.1 9) (.92)

Reasoning 2.69 2.61 2.77(Range=1-4) (.75) (.80) (.72)

Concept 3.10 3.01 2.86Knowledge (. 72) (.8 0) (.76)(Range=1-4)

Communicat ion 2.63 2.74 2.65(Range=1-4) (.65) (.66) (.57)

Procedures 2.69 2.64 2.59(Range=1-4) (.96) (.99) (.91)

Effect

ns

ns

ns

ns

ns

DAP Average DIP Effect

3.58 4.07 3.4 AV>DAP*. DIP*(1.1 ) u .n (1.1)

2.66 2.78 2.59 ns(.77 ) (.79) (.78)

3.05 3.19 2.88 AV>DAP* . DIP*(.76) (.76) (.77 )

2.61 2.67 2.69 ns(.68) (.65) (.61)

2.64 3.06 2.45 AV>DAP*. DIP*u.o: (.91) (.94)

Note . The me ans are given fir st. Th e s ta ndard deviations are in parentheses. P < .05.

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the extent to which teachers' instructional of mathematical concept knowledge, F(2,practices were in agreement with the stan- 281) = 3.28, P < .05, mathematical proce­dards advocated by the NAEYC guidelines. dures, F(2, 281) = 8.85, P < .01, and holisticThis information was then used to deter- mathematics, F(2, 281)= 6.79, P < .01. Theremine whether the 1st-grade students had were no other significant differences. Subse­been taught by teachers who utilized devel - quent post hoc comparisons revealed thatopmentally appropriate practices (n=66), students whose teachers adopted practicesdevelopmentally inappropriate practices that were neither appropriate or inappropri­(n=141), or practices that were neither de- ate (average)had significantly higher scoresvelopmentally appropriate or inappropri- in the mathematics subdomain areas of ho­ate (n=86). The data were then analyzed listie and procedures than students whoseusing analyses of variance (ANOVA). The teachers used developmentally appropriategrouping variable was 1st-grade teachers' or inappropriate activities.instructional practices (DAP, DIP, or aver- Our analyses also examined the effect ofage ), and the outcome variables were developmentally appropriate practices onchildren's academic achievement in math- 1st-grade students' achievement in lan­ematics and language, and children's social guage. Descriptive statistics for the threeskills. It was judged that the data approxi- subdomain language measures (RTR, COL,mated a normal distribution. and MaC) are outlined in Table 2. No

The analyses examined theeffect ofteach- significant differences were found.ers' beliefs about developmentally appropri- Finally, our analyses examined the ef­ate practices on 1st-grade students' fect of teachers' instructional practices onmathematics achievement. Descriptive sta- 1st-grade students' social skills. Descri p­tistics for the five subdomain measures are tive statistics for this measure are reportedoutlined inTable 1. TheresultsoftheANOVA in Table 3. There was a significant differ­showed significant differences for measures ence in social skills scores obtained by the

Table 2Means and Standard Deviat ion for Measu res of 1st-Grade Students' Language Arts

Performance by Teachers' Beliefs and Instructional Practices

Teachers' Beliefs Teachers' Practices

DAP Averag e DIP Effect DAP Average DIP Effect

Response to 3.31 3.27 3.56 DIP>DAP *.AV* 3.28 3.31 3.28 nsReading (.63) (.67) (.50) (.72) (.69) (.61)(Range=I-4)

Command of 3.67 3.54 3.88 DIP>DAP*.AV* 3.65 3.62 3.66 nsLanguage (.62) (.69)s (.32) (.74) (.65) (.66)(Ran gee l-d)

Management 3.70 3.55 3.86 DIP>DAP *.AV* 3.68 3.59 3.63 nsof Content (.60) (.67 (.3 5) (.65) (.66) (.61)(Ra n ge e l-d)

N ote. The means are giv en fir st. Th e s tandard devi ation s a re in parentheses. *p < .05.

Table 3Means and Standard Deviation for Measures of 1st-Grade Students'

So cial Skill s by Teachers' Beliefs and Instructional Practices

Measure

Teachers' Beliefs

DAP Average DIP Effect

Teachers' P r a ct ice s

DAP Average DIP Effect

SocialSkills

110 .2 99 .14 95.83 DAP>DIP*. AV* 110.56 91.42 100 .16 DAP>DIP*. AV*(15.8) (12.7) (16.4) (14.8) (14 .9) (12.1)

N ote. The means are give n fir st. Th e s tandard deviations are in parentheses . *p < .05.

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DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC EFFECTS

three groups of students F(2, 290) =38.04,p < .01. Students whose teachers useddevelopmentally appropriate practices hadsignificantly higher scores than those stu­dents whose teachers used developmen­tally inappropriate or average practices.

DiscussionThe main purpose ofthe study was to deter­mine whether there were differential ef­fects of teachers' beliefs and practicesconcerning developmentally appropriatepractice on 1st-grade students' academicachievement and social skills. With regardto academic achievement, both languagearts and mathematics were examined.

One of the tangential findings of thisstudy was that teacher beliefs are not neces­sarily consistent with their practices. Thiswas evident by the fact that when studentswere grouped according to teacher beliefsand practices among the three dependentvariables (language arts, mathematics, andsocial skills), the groups did not remain con­stant. For example, there were 87 studentsin the DAP group reflecting teacher beliefs,while there were only 66 children in the DAPgroup reflecting practice. Conversely, therewere 110 children in the group reflecting DIPbeliefs, while there were 141 in the groupreflecting DIP practices. This finding sug­gests that teachers are more likely to say thatthey have beliefs that are consistent withDAP than to indicate that they have prac­tices that are consistent with DAP. It mayalsoindicate that many teachers are not ableto distinguish between beliefs and practicesand may in fact believe that certain practicesreflect DAP teaching, when in fact they donot. While this was not the primary purposeofthe study, further investigation is requiredto examine this phenomenon.

Teacher BeliefsThe findings of this study suggest that 1st­grade students who are taught by teacherswho have developmentally inappropriatebeliefs had higher scores on the end-of-yearlanguage arts measures ofRTR, MOC, andCOL. A possible explanation for this find­ing could be the lack of congruence between

developmentally appropriate beliefs andpractices in early childhood classrooms. Areasonable assumption (with subsequentimplications for student achievement) isthat the gap between inappropriate beliefsand practices is not as wide as might beexpected, given the findings . Since earlylanguage arts development is primarilyprocess-oriented, while manyearlylanguagearts assessments are skill-based, teacherswhose instructional beliefs were more ori­ented toward skills, rather than process,taught their students in such a manner. Itcould , therefore, be expected that childrenwho were instructed in this way would dobetter on skill-based assessments .

Children who were in classrooms whereteachers' beliefs reflected DAP were ratedas having higher social competence skillsthan children who were in either of theother two groups. Since DAP beliefs reflecta higher degree of child-centeredness, thisfinding might be expected. In situationswhere teachers had beliefs that were DIP(teacher-centered), children who exhibitedindependence, a high degree of languageuse, and creativity in learning may not beviewed as socially competent. This wouldbe especially true if teachers saw their roleas the deliverers ofinstruction and childrenas the passive recipients.

The results of this study did not indicatethat there were any differences among thegroups on measures of mathematicsachievement.

Teacher PracticesThe findings from this study indicated thatchildren who had teachers who were as ­sessed as having practices that were nei­ther developmentally appropriate nordevelopmentally inappropriate scored sig­nificantly higher than either of the twogroups ofchildren in the mathematical con­cept knowledge, mathematical procedures,and holistic mathematics subtests. Accord­ingto Hart, Burts, and Charlesworth (1997),the NAEYC guidelines can be interpretedas the extremes ofDAP and DIP, and thereis a continuum from one extreme to theother. Adopting strategies from both ends

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of the continuum, such as direct and indi­rect instruction, and focusing on specificskills as well as processes and strategies,could be especially effective in teachingmathematics, where teaching skills andsmall bits of information is more prevalentthan process knowledge at this grade level.It may be that teachers whose practices fellbetween DAP and DIP were able to drawupon a multifaceted approach to instruc­tion where mathematics was concerned. Inmany primary grades there is no specificapproach to teaching mathematics as thereoften is in reading and language arts; there­fore, a more eclectic approach might bebeneficial to children-effectively teachingthem both process and skill.

This is further evidenced in the findingregarding language arts. The data fromthis study indicated that there was no sig­nificant difference among the groups in anyof their scores in the language arts portionof the assessment. Many schools haveadopted specific language arts curricula,with a specific scope, sequence, and instruc­tional philosophy, and this may account forthe lack of findings here.

Finally, with regard to social skills, itwas found that children who had teacherswhose practices were developmentally ap­propriate scored significantly higher thaneither of the other two groups of children.Social skills relate to children's behaviorsin the classroom. Since this finding isconsistent with the finding related to socialskills and teachers' beliefs, it may be thatthe same principles are operating here.Since teachers who adopt a more develop­mentally appropriate approach to teachingcan be considered more child-centered andchild-focused, they may actually rate chil­dren in a different manner than teacherswho are not developmentally appropriatein either their beliefs or practices.

Current research suggests that there isa gap between knowledge or beliefs andpractice. It has been reported in the litera­ture that teachers' beliefs are often moreconsistent with developmentally appropri­ate practice than are their behaviors in theclassroom (Charlesworth etal., 1993) . Thus,

a possible explanation for the findings inthis study could be the lack of congruencebetween developmentally appropriate be­liefs and practices in the classroom. Areasonable assumption is that the gap be­tween inappropriate beliefs and practices isnot as wide, with subsequent implicationsfor student achievement. Clearly, furtherresearch is needed to clarify this issue.

Arelated possibility is that havingstrongbeliefs, one way or another, leads to positiveoutcomes for children on measures associ­ated with language and reading develop­ment. This could mean that these teachersadhere to a specific pedagogical approachas compared to those teachers who fallsomewhere between DAP and DIP. Theselatter teachers may practice their approachin an inconsistent and ineffective manner.

What is clear is that both DAP beliefs andpractices are associated with positive socialskills ratings of children by their teachers.These children are rated by their teachers asbeing more socially skilled and as havingbetter social and work habits. This is animportant finding and seems to indicate thatearly primary classrooms characterized aschild-centered and -focused, and that pro­mote child initiation, facilitate the positivedevelopment of children's social skills.

The participants in this study were pre­dominantly African American, which lim­its the generalizability ofthe findings . Thus,it is important for future research to exam­ine the relationship between developmen­tally appropriate practices and academicachievement with primary grade childrenwho represent normative population char­acteristics. Furthermore, establishing acausal relationship between teachers' be­liefs and practices and children's academicachievement and social skills is beyond thescope of the present study. Further re­search, therefore, is recommended to verifythese initial findings .

The current study relied on teachers'self-reports of their beliefs and practices, aswell as on their ratings of their students'social skills. Questions related to the reli­ability of these measures potentially re­strict the validity of the conclusions that

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DIFFERENTIAL SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC EFFECTS

can be drawn from the findings . Similarly,interpretation of the findings is confoundedby the fact that teachers create the class­room contexts for developing students' so­cial skills. Future research shouldincorporate independent measures, such asclassroom observations, peer ratings, andstudent self-reports ofteachers' educationalpractices and students' social skills. An­other consideration for future research re­lates to the use of standardized tests formeasuring student achievement. Otherapproaches, such as teacher observationsand student work samples, could providemore meaningful information on studentperformance in context. Finally, longitudi­nal follow-up studies are needed to clarifythe interplay among developmentally ap­propriate practices, student achievement,and children's social skills.

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