An Ecobehavioral Analysis of Social Behavior Across Learning Contexts in Kindergarten

The purpose of the present study was to examine the opportunities kindergarten children in the United States had across different learning contexts (whole group, small group, center time, lunch, recess) to engage in social behavior as defined by the Developing Skills Checklist. Across a 3-year period, the social behaviors of 36 children across 13 public and private kindergarten classrooms were recorded to determine the frequency of social behaviors during the course of their regularly scheduled classroom activities. Social behavior was subdivided into the categories of classroom skills, self-esteem, persistence, self-expression, and pro-social behavior. Differences were found between the five learning contexts when looking at children’s social behavior. Overall, persistence was consistently demonstrated more often across all learning contexts. Self-esteem was observed more frequently during small group and center time than the whole group. Self-expression and prosocial behavior were observed at extremely low rates across all learning contexts