Early School Dropout Research Articles

Social and social-cognitive correlates of sociometric status in preschool and kindergarten children.

Researchers have long suggested that peers play a significant role in children's social, socialcognitive and cognitive growth and development. In this study, the correlates of sociometric status in early childhood were examined. Sociometric popularity was determined for 123 preschoolers and 111 kindergarteners. Each child was then observed during free play for six 10-second time samples, each day, over 30 days for preschoolers and 25 days for kindergarteners. The level of social and cognitive play observed was recorded, as well as the child's conversational partners, the initiator of the activity and the affective quality of each social interchange. Social competence (as rated by teachers) and social problem-solving ability were also assessed. Analyses revealed peer rejection to be consistently related to a agonistic behaviour. Second, unpopular children were observed to engage in less mature forms of play and to interact less with others than were their more popular agemates. In early studies of children's developing competencies, researchers centered generally on the assessment of cognition and intelligence. However, such measures of intellectual competence often bear little relation to children's abilities to deal adequately with their real-world problems, both within and outside of the academic milieu (Putallaz & Gottman, 1981). More recently, the assessment of social competence and its relation to academic and social skills have been subject to scrutiny. One current line of speculation is that children of average or above average intelligence who evidence poor peer relations in the early school years may begin to associate the educational milieu with their social problems. Consequently, their academic performance gradually declines, leading eventually to early school drop-out (Ullman, 1957) and other social and personality difficulties (see Hartup, in press, for a detailed presentation of this position). At the University of Waterloo, we have been concerned with children who experience difficulties in their relationships with peers. Rubin and his colleagues have examined the concurrent and predictive correlates of

Time on Task: A Naturalistic Study in Sixth-Grade Classrooms

? 1978 by The University of Chicago. 0013-5984/78/7803-0010$00.88 Pupils who fall behind their classmates academically fall further behind each year they remain in school (1). Part of the explanation for their continuing failure to keep pace with other pupils may lie in the fact that they spend less time on academic tasks than other pupils. The reason for such self-defeating behavior may be the desire to maintain self-esteem. If a pupil expends less effort on schoolwork than the average pupil, any resulting failure may be easier to accept. Pupils who try but fail may conclude that they do not have the ability to succeed. Pupils' involvement in tasks would seem to be a necessary condition for school achievement. If pupils are to master material, they must engage in it and react to it-read, make response. Indeed there are data to suggest that achievement is related to time for learning and opportunity to learn (2, 3). Similarly, there are data to suggest that learning is also positively related to low rates of time lost because of poor management of classrooms, for example, lengthy transitions (4). The major purpose of the present study was to find out whether pupil involvement was different for high, middle, and low achievers. Also, we wanted to find out whether pupils generally were more involved in some subjects than in others and whether certain types of classroom activities were associated with higher or with lower levels of pupil involvement. We selected two different types of schools to find out whether pupils' characteristics affect involvement. School 1