Learning Behaviors Mediating the Effects of Behavior Problems on Academic Outcomes

This study examined the relationships between behavior problems, learning behaviors, and educational outcomes for at-risk preschool children. A sample of Head Start children (N = 196) was selected in the southeast United States. Behavior problems were assessed using the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (LeBuffe & Naglieri, 1999 LeBuffe, P. A. and Naglieri, J. A. 1999. Devereux Early Childhood Assessment, Lewisville, NC: Kaplan Press. [Google Scholar]) and learning behaviors were assessed using the Preschool Learning Behavior Scale (McDermott, Leigh, & Perry, 2002 McDermott, P. A., Leigh, N. M. and Perry, M. A. 2002. Development and validation of the Preschool Learning Behavior Scale. Psychology in the Schools, 39: 353–365. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Academic outcomes included measures of literacy and mathematics, collected using subscales from the Galileo System for the Electronic Management of Learning (Bergan et al., 2003 Bergan, J. R., Rattee, M., Feld, J. K., Smith, K., Cunningham, K. and Linne, K. 2003. The Galileo System for electronic management of learning, , 10th ed., Assessment Technology. Incorporated [Google Scholar]). Children's behavior problems were found to predict their learning behaviors as well as their mathematics and literacy yearly gains. Furthermore, learning behaviors were found to mediate the effect of behavior problems on literacy and mathematics. The findings of the study provide a preliminary explanation regarding the mechanism through which behavior problems relate to academic outcomes for low-income preschool children.