Cooperation Between Preschool Peers in Relation to Their Math Learning During Dyadic Activities

Abstract

For many children, preschool classrooms are a key context for early learning. While early education researchers and policy makers have focused considerable attention on the instructional and structural aspects of preschool classrooms, classic child development theory also points to the important role that peers play in early learning experiences (e.g., Vygotsky, 1978). Although best practices for early childhood education emphasize peer learning opportunities (e.g., Williams, 2001), adults, including early childhood teachers, often underestimate preschool children’s abilities to participate in cooperative interactions (Howes & Tonyan, 1999). And, within the empirical literature, many aspects of cooperative learning among very young peers remain poorly understood. This research aims to help build the knowledge base on peers and learning in early childhood. Seventy-two preschool children (mean age= 4.66 years) participated in a study designed to target counting skills through early math learning games that were adapted from empirically-supported curricula. In dyads (n=36), the children completed six game play sessions across three weeks with all sessions video-recorded and sessions one, three, and five coded for peer cooperative behaviors. The children’s general math skills were assessed prior to the first game play session and their counting skills were assessed after completion of the sixth game play session. The average rates of occurrence, and variations therein, of dyads’ peer cooperative behaviors during game play were examined. Using multi-level regression modeling to account for the dyadic nesting of these data, associations between cooperative behaviors and post-study counting skills were also explored. Results showed that these very young children demonstrated all of the peer cooperation behaviors of interest, including dyadic regulatory states and discrete peer cooperation behaviors (although the latter occurred less frequently than the former). Evidence that dyads’ peer supportive behaviors were significantly associated with their post-test counting scores was also found. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.