Differential Social and Academic Effects of Developmentally Appropriate Practices and Beliefs

Abstract

This investigation examined the prevalence of developmentally appropriate practices in the primary grades and the effects of teachers' developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices on 1st-grade students' social skills and academic achievement in the areas of language and mathematics. The participants were 293 first-grade students attending four inner-city public schools and their teachers. An instrument was administered to the teachers in order to measure the degree to which their beliefs and instructional practices reflect the tenets of developmentally appropriate practices. Academic achievement tests were administered to the 1st-grade students, and their social behavior was assessed using the Social Skills Rating Scale (Gresham & Elliott, 1990). The analyses examined differences in the academic achievement and social skills of students who were taught by teachers whose beliefs and practices were consistent with developmentally appropriate practices, developmentally inappropriate practices, and beliefs and practices that fell between appropriate and inappropriate on the assessment scale. The findings suggested that teachers' beliefs were not consistent with their practices. Students taught by teachers who held developmentally inappropriate beliefs had significantly higher scores on measures of language. Students whose teachers adopted practices that were neither appropriate nor inappropriate had significantly higher mathematical achievement scores. The results also indicated that both developmentally appropriate beliefs and practices were associated with positive social skill ratings of children by their teachers. The findings are discussed in terms of the lack of congruence between 1st-grade teachers' beliefs and classroom practices.