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Exploring Effects ofDevelopmentally AppropriatePractices in CyprusMonica Shiakou a & Jay Belsky aa Institute for the Study of Children, Families &Social Issues, University of LondonPublished online: 04 Aug 2009.

To cite this article: Monica Shiakou & Jay Belsky (2009) Exploring Effects ofDevelopmentally Appropriate Practices in Cyprus, Early Education and Development,20:4, 565-583, DOI: 10.1080/10409280802356679

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DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICE IN CYPRUSSHIAKOU AND BELSKY

Exploring Effects of DevelopmentallyAppropriate Practices in Cyprus

Monica Shiakou and Jay BelskyInstitute for the Study of Children, Families & Social Issues

University of London

Research Findings: This study, undertaken in Nicosia, Cyprus, sought to evaluatesome of the hypothesized developmental benefits of developmentally appropriatepractices (DAP) by investigating how the pedagogical attitudes and practices ofGreek/Cypriot parents (n = 142) and teachers (n = 16) relate to 4- to 7-year-olds’ (n =142) social–emotional functioning at the end of the academic year. After taking intoaccount potentially confounding effects of parenting attitudes and practices, only afew classroom–environment effects were detected; virtually all of these proved in-consistent with theoretical expectations, though upon reflection they proved less sur-prising than first imagined. Practice or Policy: Results are discussed in terms of theevidence base of DAP.

Some critics of contemporary childhood argue that academic training is increas-ingly replacing children’s play and experiential hands-on learning in the earlyyears of children’s lives (Pellegrini, Kato, Blatchford, & Baines, 2002; Ranz-Smith, 2007). Education is now seen by these critics as a race, and the earlier youbegin, the sooner and the better you finish. As a result, academic pressure on, andtesting of, children begins as young as the age of 3, and children’s lives often seemoverscheduled with adult-organized activities. What is often overlooked, critics ofthis new world of childhood contend, is the close link between play and healthy de-velopment. Notably, a substantial body of research has revealed beneficial effectsof play on cognitive development, including language skills, problem solving, per-spective taking, representational skills, memory, and creativity (e.g., Davidson,

EARLY EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT, 20(4), 565–583Copyright © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 1040-9289 print / 1556-6935 onlineDOI: 10.1080/10409280802356679

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Monica Shiakou, Institute for theStudy of Children, Families & Social Issues, Birkbeck College, University of London, 7 BedfordSquare, London, WC1B 3RA, United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]

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1998; Newman, 1990; Russ, Robins, & Christiano, 1999; Singer, Singer, Plaskon,& Schweder, 2003).

Despite research chronicling the developmental benefits of play, many parentsin many cultures today believe that play is distinct from learning, simply a way forchildren to let off steam, just for amusement (Farver & Howes, 1993; Farver &Wimbarti, 1995). What may be more surprising is that many preschools and kin-dergartens seem to share and put into practice such beliefs. These schools oftenplace direct instruction and structured learning high on their list of important activ-ities for children to do, regarding play as a mere break from learning (Ranz-Smith,2007). Such programs have been deemed by some as engaging in developmentallyinappropriate practices (DIP) for young children, in contrast to more child-initi-ated, less formal developmentally appropriate practices (DAP), in which play isviewed as an integral part of the curriculum and discovery learning is emphasized(Bredekamp, 1987).

How does exposure to developmentally appropriate and inappropriate practicespotentially affect children’s development? That is the question this article seeks toaddress by presenting results of a study carried out in Nicosia, Cyprus. The out-comes selected for measurement, based on results of related research (see below),include confidence in learning, feelings toward school, anxiety in testing, and so-cial skills. Children with greater exposure to DAP and/or less exposure to DIPwere expected to score higher on all these constructs, except for anxiety in a testingsituation, on which they were expected to score lower.

PLAY AND EARLY SCHOOL CURRICULUM

As early as the 1980s, evidence was emerging that many American early child-hood education and kindergarten programs were adopting more formally aca-demic and adult-directed approaches to early education (Hyson, Hirish-Pasek, &Rescorla, 1990). Increasingly, kindergartens were implementing prescribed,commercially prepared curricula, often extensions of textbook series used in theearly grades of elementary school; these included formal reading instruction,with written assignments out of workbooks and frequent grading (Durkin, 1987;Educational Research Service, 1986; Shepard & Smith, 1988). According tosome, kindergarten went from being a pleasant and playful introduction to “real”school to a source of boredom and even anxiety for all too many children (Scales,1987).

In an effort to challenge the creeping formalization of early learning environ-ments, Bredekamp (1987) offered guidelines for the provision of DAP, along witha critique of DIP, for programs serving children from birth through the age of 8.What distinguishes a developmentally appropriate from a developmentally inap-propriate classroom is primarily the extent to which its program addresses the de-

566 SHIAKOU AND BELSKY

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velopmental needs and capabilities of the individual children being served. Fur-thermore, DAP emphasize free play as an essential ingredient of age-appropriatelearning environments. This stems from the view that much of early learning oc-curs when children direct their own play activities and experience success in tasksthey have defined for themselves (Fein & Rivkin, 1986).

DIP, in contrast, involve abstract paper-and-pencil activities, workbooks, dittosheets, flashcards, rote learning, and direct teaching of discrete skills, often pre-sented to large groups of children (Burts, Hart, Charlesworth, & Kirk, 1990).Teachers dominate the environment by talking to the whole group most of the time,telling children what to do, rather than moving among groups and individuals.Aesthetic development involving art and music is encouraged only when there isextra time, with art even consisting of coloring predrawn forms, copying anadult-made model of a product, or following other adult pre-described directions(Bredekamp, 1987).

EFFECTS OF APPROPRIATE AND INAPPROPRIATEPRACTICES ON CHILDREN

Although much has been written about developmental risks associated with devel-opmentally inappropriate curricula (e.g., Dickinson & Snow, 1987; Elkind, 1986;Shepard & Smith, 1988), it remains the case that only limited research has beencarried out to address the issue. And that which is available, particularly the morerecent work, would not seem to substantiate across-the-board claims of benefitsderived from DAP and costs associated with DIP.

One important study by Stipek, Feiler, Daniels, and Milburn (1995) found thatchildren in child-centered (i.e., developmentally appropriate) programs ratedtheir abilities higher, showed less dependency on adults for approval and instruc-tions, manifested more pride in their accomplishments, and claimed to worry lessabout school than children in developmentally inappropriate didactic programs.In related research, Burts et al. (1990) tested two classrooms of 5- to 6-year-olds,finding that children in the more developmentally inappropriate one manifestedsignificantly more stress behavior than children in the developmentally appropri-ate classroom. In another notable investigation, Hyson et al. (1990), using the ob-servational instrument employed in the current inquiry (i.e., the Classroom Prac-tices Inventory [CPI]), detected no significant differences in the academic skillsof the children in developmentally appropriate and inappropriate classrooms.Those in the latter classes, however, were rated as less creative and less relaxedby teachers and experimenters. Children in classrooms that scored low on devel-opmental appropriateness showed more anxiety during a standardized testing sit-uation. However, the fact that mothers with higher expectations for formal aca-demic work and adult instruction proved more likely to send their children to

DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICE IN CYPRUS 567

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preschool programs that were found, using the CPI, to be less developmentallyappropriate raised questions about how to interpret the findings of this research.Indeed, Hyson et al. concluded that what appeared initially to be “school effects”may well have been family effects operating via parental choice of a particularschool. If nothing else, their work highlights the need, especially in field re-search, to control for family factors and processes that may be confounded withclassroom environment before estimating putative effects of classroom prac-tices. Moreover, the studies cited informed the selection of measures to be usedin the current inquiry, including measures of confidence in learning, feelings to-ward school, and anxiety in testing, with the expectation being that children withgreater exposure to DAP and/or less exposure to DIP would score higher on allthese constructs.

Given such predictions based on the research cited, it seems notable that severalrecent studies have raised questions about any claims regarding the developmentalbenefits of certain teacher beliefs and practices. Consider Smith and Croom’s(1999) finding that more traditional—and developmentally inappropriate—beliefsby teachers about learning processes predicted higher general school self-conceptfor boys and that DAP were not a predictor of any dimension of self-concept. Alsoof interest was evidence that for boys, both DAP and traditional practices provedpositively related to several of the academic self-concept scales (e.g., reading,math). It is on the basis of these latter results that we included assessment of chil-dren’s self-perceptions of competence in math and literacy in the present investiga-tion.

In yet another study, Gelzheiser, Griesemer, Pruzek, and Meyers (2000) foundthat developmentally appropriate and traditional practices were unrelated to a cur-riculum-based measure of math achievement in the case of first- and second-gradegeneral and special education students. The fact that achievement was associatedwith a measure that tapped mathematical processing and strategy instruction ledthe authors to conclude not only that theory exceeded data vis-à-vis the value ofDAP, but that primary teachers would not affect their students’ achievement inmathematics if they chose to organize their classrooms along more developmentalor more traditional lines. This view contrasts markedly with Miller and Bizzell’s(1983) earlier findings showing that children who had attended a non-didactic pro-gram at age 4 scored higher in mathematics in second and sixth grade than childrenwho had attended early didactic programs.

In the final research considered here, Marcon (1999) compared the language,self-help, social, motor, and adaptive development of 4-year-olds attending threedifferent preschool models operating in an urban school district: child-initiatedprogram (Model CI), academically directed program (Model AD), and mid-dle-of-the-road program (Model M). Children in classrooms in which teachersheld beliefs that corresponded with a single internally coherent theory of howyoung children learn and develop (i.e., CI, AD) performed better on standardized


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measures of development than did children whose teachers attempted to blend as-pects of theoretically diverse approaches. Clearly, the absence of difference be-tween the two contrasting models on a variety of adaptive-behavior outcomes wasnot consistent with a view highlighting across-the-board benefits of a child-initi-ated approach to early education. The same can be said of the differences detectedbetween the two well-defined models in favor of the AD model in the case of writ-ten language and play and leisure skills. Although it was not the case that no advan-tages were associated with the CI model (e.g., expressive and receptive language,personal and interpersonal skills), the diversity of findings led Marcon to recom-mend additional research, a call we take up in this investigation of young childrengrowing up in Cyprus. Moreover, we do so by including a teacher-rated socialskills assessment, given Marcon’s evidence suggesting greater interpersonal skillsfor CI children; we also included a measure of playfulness, given his findingsshowing greater play skills among children exposed to the AD model and the em-phasis on the importance of play in writings on DAP.

SETTING THE SCENE: CYPRUS

The third largest island in the Mediterranean, Cyprus stretches 240 km from thewest coast to its easternmost tip, and 96 km from north to south. On May 1, 2004Cypriots woke up to a new flag flying alongside their national colors—the yellowcircle of stars on a blue background. They are now citizens of the European Union.The population of Cyprus was 730,400 at the end of 2003, of whom 639,500(80.7%) were Greek Cypriots (including Armenians, Maronites, and Latins),87,600 (11.0%) were Turkish Cypriots, and 66,000 (8.3%) were foreigners resid-ing in Cyprus. The density of the population is 86 persons per square kilometer.The current study was conducted in the capital city of Cyprus, Nicosia, the only ex-isting divided capital in Europe. The island has remained divided since 1974, aftera Greek-inspired coup prompted Turkish troops to invade the northern third of theisland and led to the internal displacement of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, with theGreek majority in the south and the Turkish in the north. The present research wasconducted in the southern part of the city with a population estimated at 206,200 atthe end of 2001 (Government Web Portal, 2008). The sample was made up of aGreek/Cypriot population only.

Of particular importance to the study design is that once place of residence ischosen by a family, those relying on state education in Cyprus have no directchoice as to which school their child will attend; the free public school program thechild attends is determined by where the family lives. Although primary school at-tendance, including kindergarten, is mandatory in Cyprus, the same is not true ofpreschool.


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METHOD

Participants

The research participants were 142 Greek/Cypriot children between 4.1 and 7.0years of age (M = 5.9 years, SD = 0.65) enrolled in seven preschool classes (n = 67)and nine first-year/kindergarten classes (n = 75) in six schools in Nicosia, Cyprus,along with 142 parents (10 fathers) and 16 female teachers (i.e., one teacher perclass). Participating parents were highly educated: 45% were university graduatesand all others were high school graduates, with some 36% having post–high schooleducation. The mean class size of the classrooms was 16, with 9 children fromeach, on average, participating in the study. Overall, 54% of families invited fromthese classes agreed to take part in the research (i.e., 142/263). Comparisons be-tween participants and nonparticipants could not be made because without paren-tal consent, no information was available on the nonparticipants. Families of thechildren from the six schools did not differ from one another on a variety of demo-graphic variables, including mother’s and father’s ages, educations, incomes, andhours of employment. The 16 teachers, all college educated, averaged 34 years ofage, with 37% teaching in the same school, at the same grade level, for 8 or moreyears and 69% with at least 8 years of classroom teaching experience.

Procedure

The data for the present research were collected by a team of three, including thefirst author, who gathered roughly 70% of the data, with the remaining data distrib-uted across the other two researchers. Before any data were collected, permissionto enter and work in schools in Nicosia was obtained from the Ministry of Educa-tion and Culture in Cyprus as well as from the head of each school. Research pro-cedures were carried out between October 2005 and June 2006, during winter,spring, and summer. Students took an informative letter home to their parents de-scribing the research and inviting families to participate. Parents who consented toparticipate were sent questionnaires by post to assess their beliefs and practicesabout play and learning. During the winter, assessments were made of teacher be-liefs and practices, and observational assessments of classrooms were conductedto measure the extent to which developmentally appropriate and inappropriatepractices characterized the classroom environment. In the summer semester, childoutcomes were measured during an interview/testing session in a private room inthe child’s school and via teacher reports. Measurements are described in terms ofthe family environment, the classroom environment, and the child’s development.All measures administered to parents and children were translated initially intoGreek and then back-translated into English to ensure the reliability of the conver-sion.


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Family Measures

Parental beliefs about play and learning, which served as covariates in the dataanalysis, were assessed using the Education Attitudes Scale (EAS; Rescorla,1991) and the Pre-school Play and Learning Questionnaire (PPLQ; Parmar, Hark-ness, & Super, 2004). The Daily Activities Checklist (DAC; Parmar et al., 2004)was administered to assess how children spent time after the school day.

The EAS probed attitudes about achievement and performance in three skill ar-eas (i.e., academic, athletic, and artistic/musical) as well as in two social areas (i.e.,peer relations and compliance; e.g., “It’s important for my pre-schooler to learn tobe good at recognizing letters”). Twenty-eight of 32 original items used by Parmeret al. (2004) were subject to factor analysis when it was determined that a prioriscales were not internally consistent in this sample. Five factors with eigenvaluesgreater than 1.0 guided the generation of five subscales reflecting the importanceparents placed on academics (6 items; α = .77), art (3; α = .61), athletics (2; α =.61), social skills (3; α = .50), and compliance (2; α = .50). High scores reflectedstrong emphasis placed on a skill domain.

The PLLQ assessed parents’ beliefs about the importance of play and learningand their own role in early development (e.g., “Play should be just for fun”;“Young children learn social skills through play”; “Parents should only play withtheir pre-schoolers when children ask them to do so”). Respondents rated all 25items, though 3 were dropped to increase the internal consistency of three sub-scales identified by Parmar et al. (2004): importance of play for development (9items; α = .74), importance of early academics (7; α = .67), and importance ofparent’s role (6; α= .71).

Because of the emphasis placed on play in conceptions of DAP, the amount oftime spent playing in other contexts besides school was measured also. The DACwas used to assess the after-school daily lives of the children over a 1-week period bymeans of a checklist of activities related to play and learning that parents completedat the end of each day. Standard school hours in Cyprus run from 7:45 a.m. to 1:05p.m. For every activity recorded in the DAC, the parent noted who the child waswith, where the activity took place, and for how long the activity lasted. For thisstudy, variables were generated reflecting time spent in eight activities, the firstseven of which were also used by Parmar et al. (2004): play, pre-academics (e.g., let-ters, numbers), watching TV, household chores, art and music, books at bedtime,visiting the library, and organized lessons. Factor analysis reduced these to threesubscales reflecting hours per week spent in academics/no play (pre-academics, or-ganized lessons), TV/chores, and art/music/bedtime stories.

Teacher/Classroom Measures

Teachers completed the same EAS as parents (Rescorla, 1991) to assess their atti-tudes and beliefs regarding play and learning; data reduction followed Parmar et al.


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(2004). All subscales but compliance yielded tolerably internally consistent sub-scales, so this one was dropped: academics (8 items; α = .78), art (3; α = .73), ath-letics (3; α = .50), and social skills (3; α = .60).

To assess the quality of the play–learning environment of the classroom, aslightly adapted version of the Classroom Practice Inventory (CPI) (Hyson et al.,1990) was used. The CPI is a 26-item rating scale assessing the curricular empha-sis of, and emotional climate in, programs for young children. The first 20 itemsdeal with program focus and are based on the guidelines of the National Associa-tion for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) for 4- and 5-year-olds. Tenof these tap DAP (e.g., “Teachers ask questions that encourage children to givemore than one right answer”) and 10 what the NAEYC terms DIP (e.g., “Chil-dren use workbooks, ditto sheets, flashcards, and other abstract or two dimen-sional learning materials”). Six CPI items assess the emotional climate of theclassroom, evaluating teachers’ warmth, encouragement, and positive guidance,as well as the overall affective tone of the classroom (e.g., “Teachers use redirec-tion, positive reinforcement, and encouragement as guidance or discipline tech-niques” and “The sound of the environment is characterised either by harsh noiseor enforced quiet”). Two items were deleted and five new ones added to the CPI,the latter coming from a newly developed instrument, the Classroom Observa-tion Instrument–Kindergarten (COI-K) (Murray & Harrison, 2003). The devel-opmentally appropriate practices subscale was composed of 12 items (α = .72),the developmentally inappropriate practices subscale of 10 (α = .75), and theemotional climate subscale of 7 (α = .80). Scoring reflected the mean of ratingsgiven on two separate visits to each classroom, with each visit lasting 2 to 3 hr.Interrater reliability (kappa) achieved prior to formal data collection was .62 forthe 29 items on the CPI scale; rechecking during the middle of data collectionyielded a comparable estimate (.76).

Child Measures

Child outcomes took the form of teacher reports and measures obtained from or onchildren during an interview session that included a formal cognitive assessmentthat is not a subject of this report. In order to assess children’s self-perceptions ofcompetence in math and literacy, their feelings about their teachers, and their gen-eral attitudes toward school, Valeski and Stipek’s (2001) Feelings About School(FAS) questionnaire was administered in interview format; questions were readaloud to the child, who then pointed to smaller and larger bars on a chart to showdegree of endorsement of each statement. The FAS scale is composed of 12 ques-tions and yields four a priori subscales: perceived competence in math (“Show mehow good you are at numbers/math”), perceived competence in literacy (“Showme how much you know about letters”), feelings about relationship with teacher(“Show me how you feel about your teacher”), and general attitudes toward school


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(“Show me how you feel about school”). Data reduction–oriented factor analysisyielded two factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.0, one reflecting (positive) atti-tude toward school and teacher (α = .61) and the other perceived competence inlearning (α = .73).

To assess children’s anxiety in the testing situation, the experimenter rated eachchild at the end of the entire session using a 6-point scale (Hyson et al., 1990), witha high rating reflecting very heightened nervousness (e.g., fidgeting, nail biting)and anxiety (e.g., lack of eye contact) and a low rating reflecting relaxation andconfidence. The intercorrelation of ratings made by diverse pairs of trained observ-ers who simultaneously scored 25% of the sample ranged from .72 to .82. To assesschildren’s general playfulness, teachers rated children on 14 items from Rogers etal.’s (1998) Child Behaviour Inventory of Playfulness (e.g., “Child invents newgames,” “Child pretends a lot,” “Child is imaginative”). Items were summed to cre-ate an internally consistent total score (α = .76).

Teachers also rated children’s social functioning by means of Meisels andAtkins-Burnett’s (1999) 15-item revision of Gresham and Elliott’s (1990) 57-itemSocial Skills Rating System (SSRS); the revised scale is being used in the (Ameri-can) Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort study (ECLS-K).For the purposes of this article, only the 7-item social skills (e.g., cooperative, em-pathic) score is used (α = .81).

RESULTS

Preliminary analyses are reported first, addressing the descriptive characteristicsand correlation of the variables used in the study. Primary analyses follow, ad-dressing the core issue of whether classroom characteristics predicted children’sfunctioning after family factors and processes were taken into account.

Preliminary Analyses: Descriptive Statisticsand Correlations

Table 1 displays the means, standard deviations, and ranges of all of the predictorand outcome variables. Table 2 shows the correlation of family measures withclassroom variables, and Table 3 presents the correlation of family and classroompredictors with outcomes. Perhaps most worthy of comment are the links betweenfamily measures and school measures or child outcomes. Even though the signifi-cant relations displayed in Tables 2 and 3 were modest in magnitude, the decisionwas made to control for any family measure significantly correlated with a schoolmeasure and/or child outcome to reduce the risk that any detected effect of teacheror classroom variables in the primary analyses was not an artifact of family–schoolconfounding.


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Primary Analyses: Linking Classroom Environmentsto Children’s Functioning

The preferred, indeed ideal, way to evaluate classroom effects in a study such asthe present one would be to implement a multilevel model that takes into accountthe nesting of children within classrooms and thus that multiple children in a par-ticular classroom have the same classroom experiences as measured in this study.


TABLE 1Means, Standard Deviations, and Ranges of All Predictor

and Outcome Variables

Variable M SD Range

Predictor variablesCPI

Appropriate programInappropriate itemsEmotional itemsTotal appropriateness

EAS–TeachersAcademicsArtAthleticsSocial

EAS–ParentsAcademicsArtAthleticsSocialCompliance

PPLQImportance of playImportance of academicsImportance of parent’s role

DAC (hours per week)Academics no playTV/choresMusic/stories

2.782.863.453.12

5.344.324.565.00

5.164.464.705.175.81

5.474.705.45

6.344.461.83

0.460.590.580.48

0.811.040.991.00

0.930.901.110.640.53

0.870.941.00

4.363.182.19

2.04–3.672.10–4.052.40–4.142.00–4.00

3.75–6.002.00–6.002.00–6.002.50–6.00

2.00–6.001.00–6.002.00–6.002.33–6.002.00–6.00

1.78–6.671.43–7.001.17–7.00

0–210–180–17

Outcome variablesPerceived confidence in learningFeelings toward school and teacherAnxiety in a testing situationSocial skills (teacher scored)Playfulness

4.454.402.1322.92.60

0.670.611.004.0

0.60

1.83–5.002.33–5.001.00–5.00

10.00–29.001.00–4.43

Note. CPI = Classroom Practices Inventory; EAS = Education Attitudes Scale; PPLQ = Pre-school Play and Learning Questionnaire; DAC = Daily Activities Checklist.

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S–So

cial

–.01

.07

–.01

.01

.13

.11

.02

Impo

rtan

ceof

play

.02

.08

–.03

.01

.15

–.01

.09

Impo

rtan

ceof

acad

emic

s.0

1.0

2.0

4.0

9.1

2.0

3.1

0

Pare

nt’s

role

inde

velo

pmen

t–.

03.0

9–.

04.1

3.0

6.0

7.0

8

Mot

her’

sag

e.0

3–.

07.0

7.0

6–.

07.0

3.0

3

Fath

er’s

age

–.00

–.03

.06

.19†

(.03

)–.

16.0

4.0

1

Mot

her’

sed

ucat

ion

.07

.05

.05

–.05

–.03

–.04

.07

Fath

er’s

educ

atio

n.0

4.0

8–.

02–.

03–.

08.0

6.0

9

Mot

her’

sm

onth

lyin

com

e–.

08.1

0–.

13.1

4.0

9.1

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6

Fath

er’s

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thly

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me

–.01

–.01

.10

.10

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.07

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AS

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tion

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tude

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tion

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tude

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Coh

en’s

dis

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rent

hese

s.† p

=.0

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1.

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Because of the sample size requirements of multilevel modeling, it was not possi-ble to implement this analytic strategy in the present study. Therefore, a series ofordinary least squares (OLS) hierarchical multiple regression analyses were un-dertaken to determine whether classroom characteristics predicted child outcomesafter confounding family factors were taken into consideration.

In the first block of predictors (Model 1), two sets of variables were included:child’s class level (i.e., preschool vs. Grade 1) and any family variables that corre-lated significantly with either the classroom variables or the child outcome in ques-tion (see Tables 4, 5, and 6). In the second step of the analysis (Model 2), the class-room practices, including the CPI and Teacher Education Attitudes Scale (TEAS)items, were entered using the stepwise method; they entered the equation onlywhen they met the p < .05 criterion of statistical significance. The same approachwas used in the third step (Model 3) for two-way interactions involving a class-room predictor and class level. When an interaction proved significant but in-


TABLE 3Correlations Among Family Practices and Children’s Outcomes

Variable

Anxiety ina TestingSituation

SocialSkills

(Parents)

SocialSkills

(Teachers) Playfulness

PerceivedConfidencein Learning

AttitudesToward Schooland Teachers

EAS–Academics –.08 .02 .10 –.05 .24** (.05) .07

EAS–Arts –.09 .00 .05 –.05 –.00 .06

EAS–Athletics .03 –.02 –.05 –.11 .17* (.02) –.01

EAS–Compliance .08 .13 .10 –.17* (.34) –.09 .03

EAS–Social .13 –.03 .01 –.02 .02 –.13

Importance of play –.05 .08 –.13 –.07 –.04 .04

Importance ofacademics

–.08 .12 –.14 –.06 –.06 –.02

Parent’s role indevelopment

–.07 .12 –.06 –.08 .07 .01

Academics no play –.07 .05 .17** (.02) .03 .27** (.07) –.09

TV/chores .05 .08 .03 .09 .08 .02

Mother’s age .20* (.04) .07 .00 .14 .06 .05

Father’s age .12 .09 .03 .05 –.00 .00

Mother’s education .04 –.11 –.04 –.12 –.01 .05

Father’s education .02 –.06 .06 –.10 .15 .02

Mother’s monthlyincome

–.07 –.19* (.03) –.01 –.13 .07 –.09

Father’s monthlyincome

.12 –.10 .05 –.08 .04 .04

Note. EAS = Education Attitudes Scale. Cohen’s d is in parentheses.*p = .05. **p = .01.

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volved a classroom predictor that had not entered the equation in Model 2 as a sig-nificant main effect, the entire regression was rerun, forcing that main effect intothe equation to ensure that the interaction was tested appropriately (i.e., with themain effect accounted for). In the interest of space, reporting focuses upon de-tected effects of classroom experience rather than of family predictors.

The block of classroom variables significantly predicted two of seven out-comes (i.e., Model 2), namely, playfulness and social skills, and class level inter-acted with classroom practices in predicting playfulness and anxiety during test-ing (i.e., Model 3). Effects of specific classroom predictors showed that childrenwere rated as more playful when they were exposed to less art (TEAS–art) in theclassroom and were more socially skilled when they were exposed to more DIPin the classroom (see Tables 4 and 5), though the effect on social skills appliedonly to preschool children (B = .60, SE = .17, = .46, p < .001). Greater use of in-appropriate practices in the classroom also predicted greater anxiety during test-ing (see Table 6). However, not only was this main effect moderated by classlevel (i.e., Model 3), but follow-up tests to illuminate the interaction revealed thatinappropriate practices only predicted anxiety during testing for Grade 1 chil-dren and in a manner opposite to the detected main effect: The more inappropri-ate practices in Grade 1 classrooms, the lower children’s anxiety during testing(B = –.08, SE = .03, = –.33, p < .01). As is evident in Tables 4, 5, and 6, the ef-fect sizes of the statistically significant findings just reported were modest inmagnitude.


TABLE 4Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting

Playfulness

Model 1 Model 2

Variable B SE B SE

Class levelFather’s incomeComplianceR²Appropriate itemsInappropriate itemsEmotional climateTEAS–AcademicsTEAS–ArtTEAS–AthleticsTEAS–SocialR² change

.15–.07–.19

.15

.07

.09

.05* (.053)

.12–.09–.17*

.29–.63–.24

–.19

.12

.07

.07

.74

.47* (.09)

.24**–.08–.20**

–.25**

Note. TEAS = Teacher Education Attitudes Scale. Effect size (f2) is in parentheses.*p = .05. **p = .01.

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578

TAB

LE5

Sum

mar

yof

Hie

rarc

hica

lReg

ress

ion

Ana

lysi

sfo

rV

aria

bles

Pre

dict

ing

Teac

her-

Sco

red

Soc

ialS

kills

asa

Fun

ctio

nof

Cla

ssLe

vel

Mod

el1

Mod

el2

Mod

el3

Vari

able

BSE

BSE

BSE

Cla

ssle

vel

Aca

dem

ics

nopl

ayR

²A

ppro

pria

teite

ms

Inap

prop

riat

eite

ms

Em

otio

nalc

limat

eT

EA

S–A

cade

mic

sT

EA

S–A

rtT

EA

S–A

thle

tics

TE

AS–

Soci

alR

²cha

nge

Inap

prop

riat

e×

Cla

ssL

evel

R²c

hang

e

1.1

–0.1

50.

900.

100.

17

0.13

–0.1

7–0

.60

–0.1

7

0.20

.

1.2

0.10

0.94

0.03

*

–0.0

7–0

.18

0.28

*

–25.

2–0

.11

1.38

–0.6

8

7.4

0.10

0.36

0.21

0.07

***(

.02)

3.10

***

–0.1

2

1.93

***

–2.0

3***

Not

e.E

ffec

tsiz

e(f

2 )is

inpa

rent

hese

s.*p

=.0

5.**

*p=

.001

.

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579

TAB

LE6

Sum

mar

yof

Hie

rarc

hica

lReg

ress

ion

Ana

lysi

sfo

rV

aria

bles

Pre

dict

ing

Anx

iety

ina

Test

ing

Situ

atio

nas

aF

unct

ion

ofC

lass

Leve

l

Mod

el1

Mod

el2

Mod

el3

Vari

able

BSE

BSE

BSE

Cla

ssle

vel

0.26

.17

0.01

0.33

.27

0.16

–4.5

.18

–2.2

6*M

othe

r’s

age

R2

Inap

prop

riat

eite

ms

R²c

hang

eIn

appr

opri

ate

Item

s×

Cla

ssL

evel

R²c

hang

e

.02

.04

0.20

*0.

04

–0.0

4

.02

.023

.02

0.18

*

–0.1

9

0.04

0.20

0.14

.02

.10

.05

.40*

*(.

07)

0.19

*

1.16

*

1.6*

*

Not

e.E

ffec

tsiz

e(f

2 )is

inpa

rent

hese

s.*p

=.0

5.**

p=

.01.

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DISCUSSION

Many critics of contemporary childhood and especially of educational practiceemphasizing standardized testing and formal, adult-directed approaches to earlychildhood learning worry that the centrality of play and child-directed activity inchildren’s early development is being lost (Bredekamp & Rosegrant, 1995; Zigler& Bishop-Josef, 2006). Moreover, much concern has been expressed that toomuch of the early childhood classroom experience is characterized by DIP ratherthan DAP and that this undermines children’s development. The ideal way to testsuch a proposition would be to randomly assign children to classrooms that en-gaged in more and less DAP or DIP, something clearly not done in this inquiry. Thenext best method, perhaps, would be to contrast the development of children ex-posed to classrooms that score very high on DAP and very low on DIP with that ofchildren who experience the converse. Unfortunately, this proved impossible in thecurrent investigation, as no such DAP/DIP “pedigrees” emerged. As a result, wesought to evaluate effects of DAP, DIP, and teacher attitudes, in the context of afield-based correlational study carried out in Cyprus, using dimensional scales thatranged from high to low for each important classroom construct. A major strengthof this study is our effort to control for potentially confounding family factors. An-other strength, perhaps, is the focus on developmental outcomes that have been in-vestigated in related studies and thus implicated as potentially being affected bythe classroom environment.

As it turned out, just as it has in research cited at the beginning of this article,there would seem to be grounds for questioning widely embraced claims that thesupposed “loss of childhood” is developmentally costly. Although embracementof the null is always risky, especially in a study of modest size, it is noteworthy thatthe statistical effects of DAP and related teacher measures were not widespread inthis investigation, and, perhaps more surprising still, those few and small ones thatdid emerge actually appeared in some respects to be inconsistent with much con-temporary theorizing on this matter. Recall that only three significant teacher/classroom effects emerged out of many more tested after instituting controls to ac-count for the nonrandom assignment of children to schools: Children exposed toless art (TEAS–art) in the classroom proved more playful, and children exposed tomore DIP in the classroom were more socially skilled! Recall, though, that the lat-ter finding held only for preschool children. Finally, although upon first examina-tion it appeared, consistent with theory and Hyson et al. (1990), that inappropriatepractices were related to increased anxiety during testing, further investigationshowed that just the opposite was the case among children in their first year ofschool (i.e., Grade 1).

On first consideration, these few significant and small effects are difficult toreconcile with DAP/DIP theorizing. The finding that children exposed to less art(TEAS–art) in the classroom proved more playful appears counterintuitive in view


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of the fact that art and aesthetic development are considered DAP (Bredekamp &Copple, 1997). If, however, art activities are presented to children in a develop-mentally inappropriate fashion, then the finding that seems surprising might actu-ally not be. Consistent with such reasoning, classroom observations did indicatethat in classrooms rated high on DIP, children in art sessions were usually givenpredrawn figures and shapes to color; moreover, they were required to follow thedirections of the teacher as far as their designs were concerned, as well as work ontheir own without collaborating with classmates.

Turning to the finding linking inappropriate practices with greater social skills inthe case of preschoolers, one possible and admittedly post hoc explanation is thatmore traditional teachers who engage in such practices may hold rather conservativeattitudes about proper child behavior, emphasizing politeness and social rules ratherthan engaging in more “DAP”—like encouraging their pupils to wonder about whattheir classmates are feeling. As a result, their students get rated by them as havingmore (externally imposed?) social skills (rather than internally regulated ones?).

Finally, the finding linking, at least in the case of year-one students, more inap-propriate practices with less anxiety during testing may be the easiest to accountfor. To the extent that inappropriate practices include being required to sit obedi-ently with an adult, respond to questions posed by the adult, and even solve (cogni-tive-testing) problems set by an adult evaluator, then it probably is not surprisingthat young children with more such experiences are less anxious when they con-front such requirements, as they proved to be during the interview-testing proce-dures used in this inquiry.

Even if the several significant results to emerge from this investigation can beaccounted for on a post hoc basis, there are obvious risks to breathing meaning intounanticipated effects, especially ones that are indisputably small in magnitude anddo not specifically replicate any previously reported findings on the topic at hand.Consequently, the post hoc interpretations of results just advanced merit furtherscrutiny in future research. Nevertheless, they, along with the general absence ofevidence chronicling potential developmental benefits of DAP (and related teacherbeliefs), suggest that what seem to be widely assumed benefits of DAP and costs ofDIP have been exaggerated, as others have also contended on the basis of their re-search findings (Marcon, 1999; Smith & Croom, 1999). Alternatively, they simplydo not extend to Nicosia, Cyprus (or at least to the schools in which the current re-search was carried out). It will not be possible to address the latter possibility untilmore research is conducted.

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