This study was designed to investigate the sustainable academic benefits of a full time kindergarten experience beyond the kindergarten year with additional consideration of the relationship between productive learning behaviors and ongoing academic advantage. The study was conducted across four elementary schools that housed both alternating full day and daily full day kindergarten programs. The initial sample consisted of 321 students enrolled in either daily full day or alternating full day kindergarten during the 2001-2002 school year, which decreased, through attrition, to a total of 198 students enrolled in fourth grade during the 2005-2006 school year. Student academic achievement was measured using a combination of criterion referenced skill assessments, standardized test measures, and a teacher-rated social behavior scale. Hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance using chi square analyses, multivariate and univariate analyses of variance, and correlation and regression analyses.The findings indicated that by the end of the kindergarten year, full day kindergarten students outperformed their alternating day peers in both reading and mathematics. However, as measured at the beginning of the second grade year, the academic gains realized during the kindergarten year had dissipated. By the beginning of the fourth grade year, there was no difference in achievement across program types in mathematics, while a significant achievement difference was found in English/language arts, with alternating full day students outperforming their daily full day peers. Further, during the third and fourth grade years, there was a significant interaction between gender and student achievement for the cohort, with significant differences by gender and the combined effect of gender/kindergarten type on social learning behaviors. While the data established a significant, positive relationship between competent social behavior and academic achievement regardless of gender for students from both program types, boys who attended daily full day kindergarten demonstrated significantly less productive social behavior than did boys from the alternating day program and girls from the daily full day program. For those who attended daily full day kindergarten, lower social behavior ratings predicted depressed academic achievement in English/language arts well beyond the kindergarten year. / Department of Educational Leadership
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/178274 |
| Date | January 2007 |
| Creators | McFarland, Martha |
| Contributors | Sharp, William L. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | xiii, 164 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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