Get Involved!

Transition to Grade 1: Parent's and teachers' instructional and emotional support and children's adjustment and achievement.
Logo of the project: an adult and a child reading a book.

Table of contents

Project duration
-
Core fields of research
Learning, teaching and interaction
Research areas
Motivation, learning and environment for learning
Learning and interaction
Learning, learning difficulties and factors affecting learning
Department
Department of Psychology
Co-operation
Mykolas Romeris University, Ģֱ
Faculty
Faculty of Education and Psychology

Project description

"Get involved!" is a longitudinal study that is carried out by two cooperating universities: Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania) and Ģֱ (Finland). The aim of this study is to investigate the role of parents and teachers in the development of children’s academic achievement, motivation, and behavior across the transition from preschool to primary school.

The study will contribute to the field by providing information on the role of parents’ and teachers’ instructional support and affect in children’s outcomes which is crucial in promoting learning among students in school.

This project seeks to test a comprehensive model of child development in the early phase of a child’s school career (transition from preschool to Grade 1), taking into account both parental influences and teacher influences, as well as children’s evocative influence on their interpersonal environment.

The image captured kids running in a classroom

Keywords: parents, teachers, instructional support, affect, achievement, motivation, problem behaviour.

Methods and data

Data of about 300 children, their parents and teachers were collected three times: one in preschool and two in Grade 1. Parents of the children were asked to answer questionnaires concerning their own involvement in academic-related activities, affect, and cognition concerning their children. Teachers were asked to rate children’s behaviour, as well as their own activities, affect, and cognition concerning their students. The children’s measures, which concerned achievement, motivation, and behaviour were administered individually by school psychologists.

The image shows a flowchart with three downward arrows indicating time periods: Spring 2017 linked to Preschool, Autumn 2017, and Spring 2018 linked to Grade 1, illustrating the progression over an academic year.
Data collection timeline
The image is a diagram with four quadrants against a peach background, each labeled with a different category: Parents, Children, Teacher: individual child, and Teacher: group level. Each quadrant lists factors related to educational development such as improvement of reading and math skills, child’s temperament, vocabulary, and teaching style. The layout suggests a focus on different perspectives in the educational process.
Evaluation criteria for different stakeholders

Project goals

  1. To examine the longitudinal relations between parents’ and teachers’ instructional support and emotions, and children’s outcomes in school (e.g., achievement, motivation, behaviour) across the transition from preschool to the primary school.
  2. To identify cases in which parents’ and teachers’ instructional support and affect have the most favourable outcomes for children’s achievement, motivation and behaviour, and to determine the mechanisms by which those positive outcomes emerge.
A female student working on the tablet in the classroom
Children exhibiting conflictual relationships with their parents and teachers at the beginning of Grade 1 performed worse on spelling and subtraction tasks and demonstrated lower task-persistent behaviour at the end of Grade 1 than those with average (good) relationships with parents and teachers.
G. Silinskas & E. Kikas (2022)

Publications

Project team

Project leaders

Gintautas Silinskas

Academy Research Fellow

Project members

Vilija Hiltunen

Vilija Hiltunen

Postdoctoral Researcher

Justina Davolyte

Doctoral Researcher
Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

Professor, Vice Head of Department

External members

Saulė Raižienė

Professor

Renata Garckija

Ingrida Gabrialavičiūtė

Antanas Valantinas

Lars-Erik Malmberg

Monique Senechal

Jo-Anne LeFevre

Eve Kikas