PARENTING AND CHILD LEARNING: THE ROLE OF PARENTAL BELIEFS ABOUT CHILD LEARNING AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 1013974
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2017
• Project End Date: Sep 30, 2021
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
(N/A)
ITHACA,NY 14853

Performing Department
Policy Analysis & Management

Non Technical Summary
Children learn through play. Toddlers who spend more time building jigsaw puzzles have stronger spatial skills as preschoolers than toddlers who do not. Playing linear board games advances early mathskills (Siegler & Ramani, 2008) and children who report more frequent engagement in constructive play (e.g., blocks, puzzles) score higher on math word problems, a relation mediated by their spatial skills(Oostermeijer, Boonen, & Jolles, 2014). In contrast, play with electronic toys reduces caregiver-child communication relative to play with blocks and books (Sosa, 2016). Yet, children from low-income homes spend more time with sound-producing toys than their higher-income peers (Jirout & Newcombe, 2015). We explore the relation among parental beliefs about child learning, their toy preferences, and theireducation and socio-economic status (SES). We predict that parental beliefs about child learning will shape toy choices. In particular, parents from higher-SES backgrounds may value traditional toys, suchas blocks and books, as more engaging and likely to enhance learning than electronic toys, whereas low-income families may view electronic toys as more engaging to children and more likely to promote learning. The results will outline how parental beliefs about early learning may shape the opportunities that children, 6 months to 4 years, have at home to develop their cognitive skills through play. Results will inform CCEparenting programs aimed at families and our current parent-play training study that highlights the importance of play for supporting school readiness.The present work is important in outlining how parents' beliefs about the role of play in child learning may set the stage for building cognitive skills that contribute to later academic achievement. This work holds both theoretical and empirical significance. At a theoretical level, there has been limited attention given to how parental beliefs about learning during play may contribute to cognitive outcomes. Empirically, the present work will contribute new insights into how parental beliefs about learning and access to particular play materials may uniquely and jointly contribute to developmental trajectories ofearly learning. The results may highlight developmental cascades from early experiences into the early school years that can be traced to parental beliefs. Thus, the results from the proposed work will inform our current conceptions of early cognitive development and will identify how parental beliefs of early learning can be leveraged to ensure positive learning outcomes in young children. The results canalso be used to inform interventions targeted to families with young children. By directly addressing parental beliefs about learning through play, materials and programs can more effectively target activities that will be successful in engaging parents in theirchild's development. Given the many interventions aimed at promoting the amount of language that caregivers provide (e.g., http://thirtymillionwords.org/), the present work may highlight how one accessible pathway to promoting positive cognitive outcomes is through encouraging parents to invest in traditional toys that are more likely to promote parent-child interactions.

Animal Health Component

50%

Research Effort Categories

Basic

0%

Applied

50%

Developmental

50%

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
802	6020	3070	100%

Knowledge Area
802 - Human Development and Family Well-Being;

Subject Of Investigation
6020 - The family and its members;

Field Of Science
3070 - Psychology;

Keywords

parenting

play

parental beliefs

toy selection

language development

Goals / Objectives
1. To document parental beliefs about early childhood learning and examine whether these beliefs vary with parent education and socio-economic status (SES).2. To test whether parental beliefs shape their choice of play materials in the home (e.g., the percentage ofelectronic toys, traditional toys, books) and the educational value placed on these toys.3. To examine which play materials, if any, parents believe support their child's learning and in particular, how parents view electronic toys (e.g., toys that provide sounds and light up) versus traditional toys (e.g., books, blocks, and board games) as promoting learning.4. To observe parent-child play interactionsduring a laboratory visit and test the relation among parent-child interactions, parental beliefs about child learning, and parental educational ranking of traditional versus electronic toys.

Project Methods
We will survey parents of young children, 6 months to 4 years, with an established measure of parental beliefs of child activities and a new measure of parental beliefs about toys and child learning. To pilot the new measure, we will recruit a sample of 500 parents using a Qualtrics survey distributed on MTurk. Parents must reside in the U.S., speak English as their predominant language, and have only one child between 6 months and 4 years in full-time residence. The focus on single-child families will allow us to easily match toys to child age. Toensure quality responses, we will offer a slightly higher rate on the MTurk pay scale. The first section of the toy inventory asks child age and which toys are in their home, allowing parents to select among toyimages. Toy images are expected to promote higher recognition than toy names. Parents will be asked if they purchased the toys, requested them, or if theywereunsolicited (e.g., a gift). Parents are asked about thosetoys and activities their child most enjoys and if these are toys in the home or in another setting (e.g., daycare). Parents also check those toys they would like to have, explaining why. Another section of theinventory asks parents to rate which toys they believe may promote learning, ranking books, blocks, board games, pretend play items, and electronic toys. These toy categories match popular shopping sites, such as Amazon, but also overlap with those examined in previous studies (Sosa, 2016). Parents also are asked how important play with traditional toys and electronic toys are for child learning. We includean established measure of parental beliefs of child activities to more directly measure parents' beliefs about child learning. Finally, parentsprovide demographic information, including education and income level. The results from the MTurk sample will be used to revise the toyinventory. The inventory will be distributed to 100 families with toddlers across NY State. We will work with our stakeholdersto identify and select urban, rural and suburban sites across the state to ensure a range of demographic and parental SES backgrounds for pilot testing the toy inventory. From our NY sample, we will select 20 families with a strong preference for electronic toys and 20 families who instead preferred traditional toys for a laboratory visit. The laboratory visit will be held in two testing sites--Ithaca and Brooklyn--to ensure a more diverse sample. Families may be willing to participate without strong incentives for a one-time lab visit, however, if there is a lack of sufficient participation interest we will consider offering incentives such as a raffle of toys used in the study. During this visit, families will be offered both electronic and traditional toys and their play will be videotaped for 15 minutes. After a short break, parents select a toy "ideal for child learning" and their play with this toy will be videotaped for another 10 minutes. Offline coding will assess caregiver frequency and quality of play with their child. Finally, parents will complete inventories of their child's development whilechildren are assessed on their cognitive development using established measures. The results will outline how parents' views of early learning may shape their selection of play materials and in turn, how thesematerials may shape the quality of their play interactions with their child. The results will highlight how play materials in the home may impact children's early cognitive development.

Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/21

Outputs
Target Audience:Recruitment focused on parents in Ithaca and New York City who were 18 years of age or older, who had a child between the ages of 2-5 years and resided in the United States and spoke English as their predominant language. Changes/Problems:Due to COVID-19, we were unable to conduct in-person home or laboratory visits.After adjustments to our protocols, we continued our data collection remotely, conducting virtual home visits. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided opportunities for undergraduate research assistants to be trained in qualitative coding of interview transcripts, to learn the concept of coding reliability, and to work as a team to reach consensus in coding activities.Project staff, including a Cornell graduate student, have also benefitted from experience in data collection from a diverse sample, performing data analysis, and submitting findings for two separate conference presentations to TheSociety for Research in Child Development (SRCD). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A Research Brief entitled: "Parenting and Child Learning: The Role of Parental Beliefs About Child Learning and Language Development" was posted toThe Parenting Project: Healthy Children, Families & Communitieswebsite and announced to the parent education listserv. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To assess parental beliefs of child learning and play, we transcribed, and are in the process of coding, interviews previously conducted during in-home and laboratory visits with parents (N =32) of children 2 to 5 years of age.Thirteen of these families resided in New York City (NYC) and 19 in Ithaca. Twenty-onefamilies spoke English as their primary language in the home,ninefamilies spoke Spanish astheir primary home language, onefamily spoke Chinese(Mandarin)andonefamily spokeprimarilyPortuguese at home.Similarly, most of the families were college-education (n= 19), with fewer families reporting some college (n= 4), a high school diploma or GED (n= 4), some high-school (n= 4) and one parent preferring not to report educational background. In the final year of the project we completed coding andbasic analyses of parent interviews.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Kopko, K., & Casasola, M. (pending). Parenting and child learning: The role of parental beliefs. Submitted to The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2020 Special Topic Meeting: Learning through Play and Imagination, St. Louis, MO
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Ca�as, A.M., Kopko, K. & Casasola, M. (2020). Parenting and Child Learning: The Role of Parental Beliefs about Child Learning and Language Development. Available online at: https://www.human.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/PAM/Parenting/Research-Briefs/Research_Brief-Parenting_and_Child_Learning.pdf

Progress 10/01/19 to 09/30/20

Outputs
Target Audience:Recruitment focused on parents in Ithaca and New York City who were 18 years of age or older, who had a child between the ages of 2-5 years and resided in the United States and spoke English as their predominant language. Changes/Problems:Due to COVID-19, we were unable to conduct in-person home or laboratory visits.After adjustments to our protocols, we continued our data collection remotely, conducting virtual home visits. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided opportunities for undergraduate research assistants to be trained in qualitative coding of interview transcripts, to learn the concept of coding reliability, and to work as a team to reach consensus in coding activities.Project staff, including a Cornell graduate student, have also benefitted from experience in data collection from a diverse sample, performing data analysis, and submitting findings for two separate conference presentations to TheSociety for Research in Child Development (SRCD). How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?A Research Brief entitled: "Parenting and Child Learning: The Role of Parental Beliefs About Child Learning and Language Development" was posted toThe Parenting Project: Healthy Children, Families & Communitieswebsite and announced to the parent education listserv. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to code and analyze the data for specific parental behaviors.The results will inform how parents' views of early learning may shape their selection of play materials and in turn, how these materials may shape the quality of their play interactions with their child, highlighting how play materials in the home may impact children's early cognitive development. We will produce and share additional research-based translational and educational materials to inform the work of Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) parent and community educators and also with community organizations in New York (e.g. Family Reading Partnership, Sciencenter) who work with young children and families in an effort to provide research-based support to their ongoing programming. We will also continue to share our research findings via conference presentations and journal submissions.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To assess parental beliefs of child learning and play, we transcribed, and are in the process of coding, interviews previously conducted during in-home and laboratory visits with parents (N =32) of children 2 to 5 years of age.Thirteen of these families resided in NYC and 19 in Ithaca. Twenty-onefamilies spoke English as their primary language in the home,ninefamilies spoke Spanish astheir primary home language, onefamily spoke Chinese(Mandarin)andonefamily spokeprimarilyPortuguese at home.Similarly, most of the families were college-education (n= 19), with fewer families reporting some college (n= 4), a high school diploma or GED (n= 4), some high-school (n= 4) and one parent preferring not to report educational background.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Accepted Year Published: 2022 Citation: Kopko, K., & Casasola, M. (pending). Parenting and child learning: The role of parental beliefs. Submitted to The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2020 Special Topic Meeting: Learning through Play and Imagination, St. Louis, MO
• Type: Other Status: Published Year Published: 2020 Citation: Ca�as, A.M., Kopko, K. & Casasola, M. (2020). Parenting and Child Learning: The Role of Parental Beliefs about Child Learning and Language Development. Available online at: https://www.human.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/PAM/Parenting/Research-Briefs/Research_Brief-Parenting_and_Child_Learning.pdf

Progress 10/01/18 to 09/30/19

Outputs
Target Audience:Recruitment focused on parents in Ithaca and New York City who were 18 years of age or older, who had a child between the ages of 2-5 years and resided in the United States and spoke English as their predominant language. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided an opportunity to be trained in use of Amazon MTurk, an increasingly popular mechanism for conducting online research involving surveys, as MTurk facilitates access to a large and diverse participant population at a relatively low cost to investigators.Project staff, including a Cornell graduate student, have also benefitted from experience in data collection from a diverse sample and performing data analysis. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We will continue to recruit participants for laboratory visits and code and analyze the data.The results will outline how parents' views of early learning may shape their selection of play materials and in turn, how these materials may shape the quality of their play interactions with their child, highlighting how play materials in the home may impact children's early cognitive development. We will produce and share research-based translational and educational materials to inform the work of Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) parent and community educators and also with community organizations in New York (e.g. Family Reading Partnership, Sciencenter) who work with young children and families in an effort to provide research-based support to their ongoing programming. We will also share our research findings via conference presentations and journal submissions.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To assess parental beliefs of child learning and play, we surveyed parents (N =339) of children 2 to 5 years of age via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) on their views about toys and child learning.Parents were asked to rate the importance of play with a range of materials, such as play with board games, puzzles, figurines, building toys, tablets, electronic toys, and outdoor play. Most parents were between 25 and 34 years of age, identified as Caucasian, were college educated, and resided in an urban or suburban area. In addition, 51% of our parents had a male child of toddler or preschool age. Results from the survey demonstrate a clear distinction between play and school readiness. Parents who rated allowing their child time to play as important also rated play with a parent, puzzles, blocks, readings, arts and crafts, outdoor play, unguided play, and play with other children as important, and use of tablets and video watching as significantly unimportant. To further examine how parental beliefs shape the play materials provided to children in the home, we recruited 16 families to choose among toys and videotaped parents playing with their child for 10 minutes. They then completed portions of the MTurk Survey and engaged in an interview. Offline coding will assess caregiver frequency and quality of play with their child. Results will inform how: 1) parents' views of early learning may shape their selection of play materials; 2) materials shape the quality of play interactions with their child; 3) play materials in the home may impact children's early cognitive development; and 4) parenting programs aimed at families highlight the importance of play for supporting school readiness.

Publications

• Type: Conference Papers and Presentations Status: Under Review Year Published: 2020 Citation: Kopko, K., & Casasola, M. (2020) (pending). Parenting and child learning: The role of parental beliefs. Submitted to The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2020 Special Topic Meeting: Learning through Play and Imagination, St. Louis, MO.

Progress 10/01/17 to 09/30/18

Outputs
Target Audience:For Objectives 1 through 3, we focused on recruiting parents who were 18 years of age or older, who had a child between the ages of 2-5 years and resided in the United States and spoke English as their predominant language. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The project has provided an opportunity to be trained in use ofAmazon MTurk, an increasingly popular mechanism for conducting online research involving surveys, as MTurk facilitates access to a large and diverse participant population at a relatively low cost to investigators. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to develop a toy inventory based on the MTurk results, work with our collaborators and stakeholders to ensure a range of demographic and parental SES backgrounds for pilot testing the inventory, pilot test the toy inventory and laboratory visit portion of the project (Objective 4) and distribute the toy inventory to 100 families with toddlers across New York State.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Objectives 1-3: We developed a survey for distribution via Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), pilot tested the survey and revised the content based on the pilot test.We launched the survey and reviewed the findings after receipt of 100 participant responses to ensure quality and diversity of the sample.We are currently collecting MTurk survey data in an effort to document parental beliefs about early childhood learning and examine whether these beliefs vary with parent education and socio-economic status (SES), to test whether parental beliefs shape their choice of play materials in the home by offering a choice of an electronic toy versus blocks, and the educational value placed on these toys; and to examine which play materials parents believe support their child's learning and in particular, how parents view electronic toys versus a traditional toy (blocks), as promoting learning.We have incorporated choices for toy selections into the survey as well as an option for parents to respond why they selected one toy versus the other and the reasons for their selection in: preparing children for school, developing children's language skills, practicing counting, learning shape names, developing creativity, developing motor skills, promoting imaginary or pretend play, and playing with their child.We have collected255 survey responses, continue with survey data collection, and have begun analysis of the results.

Publications