Young Children's Expectations Research Articles

The effects of caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels on children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness.

Children develop expectations of caregivers' support-giving during early-life interactions. The present study examined whether caregivers' responsiveness would influence young children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness under different situational stress levels. We manipulated the caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels. Children were tested to determine their expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness. Sixty-four (33 boys, Mage = 5.34) and 68 (34 boys, Mage = 5.25) Chinese Han children from a city in Southeast China participated in Studies 1 and 2, respectively. In Study 1, we created a separation condition (i.e., a moderate level of stress) and found that children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness were significantly lower in the unresponsive condition than in the responsive condition. The expectations in the unresponsive condition decreased significantly compared with the initial expectations. In Study 2, we created a danger condition (i.e., a high level of stress) and found that caregivers' responsiveness had no significant effect on children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving behavior and willingness. These results imply that both caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels affect children's expectations of caregivers' support-giving. They further suggest that children aged 4-6 can simultaneously assess caregivers' responsiveness and situational stress levels while forming support-giving expectations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A kisgyermekkori elégedettség prediktív erejének longitudinális vizsgálata

A kvalitatív és kvantitatív integrált kutatási metódust választva – amelynek során folyamatosan reflektáltam a vizsgálat mozzanataira, állandó kontroll alatt tartva az adatfelvétel és az adatelemzés folyamatát – bíztam abban, hogy a vizsgálat révén eljuthatok az intézményváltás problémakör egy sajátos megközelítéséhez. Kutatási problémám vizsgálatához részben adaptálható eszközöket kerestem és egészítettem ki saját készítésűekkel. Ezek lehetőséget nyújtottak a feltételezett összefüggések egy kis mintán való kipróbálására, továbbá azok pontosítására. Miután az óvodában használni kívánt módszert elővizsgálat során kipróbáltam, elvégeztem az óvodai eszközök korrekcióját és kiegészítettem az óvodai vizsgálatot a diszkurzív interjú sajátos műfajával. Az iskolai vizsgálat részeként a longitudinális vizsgálatban részt vevő gyermekekről értékelést kértem az osztálytanítóktól, az attitűdméréshez pedig úgynevezett Likert-típusú skála készítésére vállalkoztam. Ahhoz pedig, hogy az óvodában és az iskolában nyert adatok értelmezhetőek, valamint egymással összehasonlíthatóak legyenek, elégedettségi szinteket és attitűdszinteket alakítottam ki. A tervezett kutatás főbb módszertani dilemmáinak (résztvevők életkorából eredő sajátosságok; adatok összehasonlíthatósága a longitudinális jellegből adódóan; szubjektivitás; anonimitás; „megfelelő-elvárt-kívánatos” válaszadás; nyelvi, nyelvszociológiai aspektus) számbavétele csak megerősített abban, hogy a kisgyermekkori vizsgálatok számos speciális nehézséggel járnak. Megalapozott az a vélekedés, miszerint a gyermekek, kiváltképp az óvodások véleményét direkt úton nehéz mérni. Ennek ellenére fontos a kisgyerekek vélekedéseinek, igényeinek, elvárásainak megismerése, kutatásom ezért a módszertani nehézségek figyelembevételével és egyben ezek ellenére tett kísérletet a gyermeki elégedettség és attitűd „mérésére”.

Effects of prior formal and informal caregiving experiences on undergraduates’ infant/toddler caregiving knowledge and beliefs

ABSTRACTWith growing emphasis on the development and use of competencies (knowledge, dispositions, skills) for training and evaluating the early childhood workforce, this study aimed to identify sources of variation in undergraduate students’ beliefs and knowledge related to competencies identified by the Collaborative for Understanding Pedagogy for Infant/toddler Development (CUPID). Specifically, we examined how prior work experience with children, formal and informal, was related to students’ knowledge of developmentally appropriate expectations of young children, beliefs regarding supporting parent–child relationships in center-based care, and endorsement of strict discipline and physical punishment. Results indicate that formal (i.e., in child care centers, family child care homes) and informal work experiences with children (e.g., babysitting) may relate to beliefs and knowledge in different ways. Students with formal experience indicated slightly more support for parent–child relationships than students with informal experience. Students with formal or informal experience reported less endorsement of strict discipline than students with no experience working with children. Implications for higher education programs that prepare students to work with infants and toddlers are discussed, including the importance of providing ample opportunities for undergraduates to work with children in formal settings, and to reflect on each of their caregiving experiences, early in the undergraduate program.

All about … handwriting

What are the expectations of young children's ability to write by hand and how is this changing in the context of an increasingly digital world, asks Annette Rawstrone

Internal Working Models of Toddlers: A Bridge from Maternal Sensitivity to Toddlers' Attachment Behaviors

Internal working models are based on young children's expectations for the behavior of their attachment figures that develop into broader representations of their relational experiences, and decision rules about how to interact with others. These internal working models are thought to influence the child's subsequent processing of social experiences and allow the child to anticipate, plan for, and adapt to his or her social world. Current research studies largely concentrated on the internal working models of attachment in childhood and adulthood; very little inquiry has been conducted on internal working models of preverbal infants and toddlers. It was not until 2007 that a study by Johnson, Dweck and Chen had found evidence for infants' internal working models of attachment using a habituation paradigm. In addition, some theorists and researchers have indicated that maternal sensitivity is associated with internal working models in childhood; and also it has been suggested that maternal sensitivity may affect toddler's attachment status. Therefore, internal working models may play an important role in relationship between maternal sensitivity and toddler's attachment status. However, there is inadequate research on maternal sensitivity and internal working models in infancy. The present study explored the relationship between toddlers' attachment status, maternal sensitivity and internal working models of toddlers. We hypothesized that toddlers of different attachment status might have unique patterns of expectations about their mother's responsive behavior, and the expectations might correspond to maternal sensitivity in caregiver-infant interactions. Forty-one toddlers(M = 14.01 months, SD = 0.81) and their mothers from middle class backgrounds participated in the study. A visual habituation study using abstract animations with separation and reunion events was conducted to test a part of the toddlers' internal working models—their expectations of a caregiver's responsiveness. Toddlers' attachment status was assessed by the Strange Situation procedure. Maternal sensitivity in caregiver–toddler interactions was measured by Maternal Behavior Q-Sort. The data was analyzed using repeated-measure analysis of variance, chi-square analyses, paired t tests, q-factor analysis and LCA. Results were as follows:(1) Toddlers' expectations of a caregiver's responsiveness depended on their own attachment status: insecure toddlers expected their caregivers to withhold comfort;(2) Toddlers' expectations of a caregiver's responsiveness depended on their mother's behavior: the toddlers of Self-centered mothers expected caregivers to be unresponsive;(3) The results found by LCA indicated that there were two types of attachment system: Category 1, the toddlers of Child-centered mothers tended to expect their caregivers to be responsive, and showed secure attachment behaviors. Category 2, the toddlers of Self-centered mothers tended to expect their caregivers to be unresponsive, and showed insecure attachment behaviors in Strange Situation procedure. These results indicated that it was effective to using a visual habituation procedure to measure internal working models of preverbal toddlers. The claims that toddlers' internal working models play an important role in the relationship between maternal sensitivity and toddler's attachment status can be supported. If we want to change the attachment status of toddlers through their internal working models, we should pay attention to the behavior of their mothers.

Generic language use reveals domain differences in young children's expectations about animal and artifact categories

The goal of the present study was to explore domain differences in young children's expectations about the structure of animal and artifact categories. We examined 5-year-olds’ and adults’ use of category-referring generic noun phrases (e.g., “Birds fly”) about novel animals and artifacts. The same stimuli served as both animals and artifacts; thus, stimuli were perceptually identical across domains, and domain was indicated exclusively by language. Results revealed systematic domain differences: children and adults produced more generic utterances when items were described as animals than artifacts. Because the stimuli were novel and lacking perceptual cues to domain, these findings must be attributed to higher-order expectations about animal and artifact categories. Overall, results indicate that by age 5, children are able to make knowledge-based domain distinctions between animals and artifacts that may be rooted in beliefs about the coherence and homogeneity of categories within these domains.

Hide And Seek: Values In Early Childhood Education And Care

ABSTRACT Early childhood education and care settings in England and the people who work in them constitute an important sphere of influence, shaping young children's characters and values. But the values and dispositions expected of the early years workforce are missing from statutory policy documentation despite its clear requirement that practitioners will espouse and promote particular ‘universal’ values in their work. The expectations for young children's achievement by the age of five also reveal a complex approach combining a structuralist and postmodern duality of individualistic and collectivist values. These present challenges and dilemmas for the sector.

Parental expectations for young children: Day care versus preschool

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine parental expectations for the curriculum content of preschool and day care programs. Subjects were 111 mothers and fathers of three and four year old children enrolled in either a day care or preschool program. Results revealed no significant differences between preschool versus day care parents in terms of expectations for the curriculum content. Analyses indicated that fathers had higher expectations and more favorable attitudes towards instruction in academic and athletic areas than mothers, while both mothers and fathers had higher expectations in academic, artistic, and compliance areas for girls compared to boys. Implications for early childhood programs are discussed.

Children's elicited imitations of controlled and rewritten reading texts.

Elicited imitation was used to investigate suspected conflicts between the controlled language of beginning reading texts and the natural linguistic expectations of young children

The Influence of Mothers on the Academic Expectations of Young Children: A Longitudinal Study of How Gender Differences Arise

How young children develop an academic self-image is not well understood, although parents and other influences exerted in the home must be important. This paper offers an approach to permit detection of differences in the processes by which mothers influence the development of young boys' and girls' academic selfimages. It employs parallel estimates of a structural equation model for the two sexes. We estimate effects (1) of mothers' appraisals of their children's general ability relative to others in the school, and (2) of mothers' specific expectations for their children's performance in reading, arithmetic and conduct, on the children's own academic expectations in those areas. By examining differences in parameters of structural equation models estimated separately for the two sexes, we can see whether there are processual differences in expectation formation for children of the two sexes. We provide an application of this approach to illustrative data from two schools.

Gender and young children's expectations for performance in arithmetic.

Gender and young children's expectations for performance in arithmetic.

Gender and young children's expectations for performance in arithmetic.

Gender and young children's expectations for performance in arithmetic.

Differences in Young Children's Expectations of Women's and Men's Intervention in Aggression

This paper reports two experiments which examined children's expectations of women's and men's intervention in aggression. In Exp. 1, 91 preschool children were randomly divided into 2 groups and shown separate video tapes: (1) subjects viewed a man passively watching young children's simulated fighting and (2) subjects viewed a woman passively watching identical simulated fighting. Upon questioning, 17% of subjects in the male-adult condition reported adult intervention while 4% of subjects in the female-adult condition reported intervention. In Exp. 2, 30 preschool boys were randomly divided into 3 groups and subjects viewed a tape of either (1) an adult male passively watching simulated fighting, (2) an adult female interrupting simullated fighting, or (3) irrelevant material (control). Tapes were discussed and rerun with subjects to ensure comprehension, then subjects were observed in free play during which the adult they had viewed was present but behaved passively. Aggressive acts were recorded for the four quarters of each play period. Aggression was uniformly low throughout the adult-male condition, high throughout the control condition, and progressed from low to high over the course of the adult-female condition. These studies appear to support the existence of differential expectations and suggest that such expectations influence behavior but may be overridden or altered under certain conditions.

Vocational role choice in second- and sixth-grade children

In a replication of two investigations reported by Looft (1971a, 1971b), 40 second- and sixth-grade male and female students were interviewed concerning their desired and expected vocational aspirations. In contrast to Looft's findings, no significant sex differences were found for either grade level in (a) the number of different (nonoverlapping) vocations nominated or (b) the number of subjects changing initial vocational role choices. When the issue of traditionality of vocational choice (i.e., vocations socially identified with the sex of the subject) was examined, it was found that half of the sixth-grade females interviewed nominated nontraditional vocations (e.g., basketball player, police officer). It was observed further that males in both the second- and sixth-grade samples overwhelmingly nominated traditional vocations. Contrary to Looft's interpretation, the findings suggest that although goals associated with the women's liberation movement (e.g., changes in sex-role expectations) are not demonstrated clearly in the vocational aspirations or expectations of young children, they may be reflected in the aspirations of adolescent females.

Parental Expectations of Preschool Children as Related to Child Gender and Socioeconomic Status

MARCUS, TERm L., and CORSINI, DAVID A. Parental Expectations of Preschool Children as Related to Child Gender and Socioeconomic Status. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 243-246. Mothers and fathers of 40 preschool children equally distributed by child gender and socioeconomic status (low and middle) were asked to predict the level of success for their child on 4 achievement-type tasks. There were no differences associated with gender or SES with respect to the children's ability to perform the tasks. Analysis of parental expectations indicated: middleSES parents had significantly higher expectations for success than lower-SES parents on 2 tasks; parents of preschool girls reported significantly higher expectations than parents of boys on 1 task; and fathers' expectations of success tendedd to be related to child gender whereas mothers' expectations were not. The results were discussed with respect to the relative impact of child gender and parental SES on parental expectations of young children.