Investigation of the Efficacy of Tools of the Mind for Enhancing Self-Control in Canadian Preschoolers

We will compare growth in self-control and in related areas of development (mathematics, reading, language, social reasoning) in children taught with TOM to children instructed with Playing to Learn (PTL; Eden & Huggins, 2001) - a play based preschool program now in wide use in YMCA childcare settings across Canada (and some in the United States). PTL was developed by an educator/author and by the General Manager of Education, Development, and Research at YMCA Canada. It was selected as the comparison program because it is also a coherent play-based program. In previous studies involving TOM, the comparison programs have differed from TOM on a number of dimensions and often have not been play-based (e.g. Diamond et al., 2007), posing challenges for the interpretation of the results.

In contrast to TOM, the activities in PTL are child initiated and are not prescribed. Teachers are trained to observe children at play and to capitalize on learning opportunities as they arise. For example, children who are using blocks to build a fort, may be encouraged to think about how the size and arrangement of the blocks influences its final structure, to count the number of blocks involved, the number of children the structure can accommodate as well as the structure's affordances. Instruction in self-control is an emergent property of these child-initiated activities. For example, teachers may help children to solve the problem of too few blocks for all of the children interested in the block building activity, by organizing themselves into teams and taking turns. They may assist in conflict resolution by helping children to generate alternative solutions such as stopping to think about the conflict and using words instead of impulsive actions to express their dissatisfaction. Comparison of the development of self-control in children taught with the TOM and PTL programs will thus provide a sense of the benefits (if any) to children of a more focused, teacher-directed approach to teaching self-control.

The primary research question is: Do preschool children taught with the TOM program show greater growth in self-control than their peers who are taught with the PTL program over a two year period? The secondary research question is: If there is a significant difference between the TOM and PTL children in growth in self-control, does that enhanced growth confer benefits for development more generally (for children's cognitive, social, linguistic and academic development)? The proposed efficacy study will be conducted in partnership with the YMCA organization of the greater Toronto area. The study duration will be two years as the TOM program follows a 2-year in-service training plan and children are not expected to reach maximal benefits from exposure to the program until the second year. Twenty YMCA sites will participate, with one participating preschool class (2 teachers) at each site. The criteria for inclusion on the list is that the site must have at least one preschool class, instruction must take place in English, and the preschoolers currently in attendance must not be slated to attend full-day Kindergarten (as per the province's roll out plan) within the study period. Ten sites (classes) will be randomly assigned to either the TOM or the PTL conditions. The YMCA has agreed to provide data on the proportion of families served at each site who pay full fees and those whose fees are subsidized. These data will serve as a proxy for the socioeconomic status of the two groups. Random assignment should result in no difference between the two groups in the mean proportion of families paying full fees.

Both groups of teachers will receive training (TOM) or in-service workshops (PTL) in their respective programs, in each of the two years of the study. Training for TOM will be conducted as required by the program developers; two days of training in the fall and three full days of following up training - one in each in the late fall, winter and spring - of the two years of the study. Professionals from the TOM organization will conduct the TOM training as well as follow-up coaching and assistance to the TOM teachers as needed. Teachers new to the YMCA receive two full days of PTL training. All receive in service workshops every year as well as ongoing in- class teacher training and coaching. The workshops and ongoing assistance are administered by senior YMCA training staff, with a wealth of experience with the PTL program. Every effort will be made to align the amount and the timing of the training/workshops in the two groups. The teachers in both groups will instruct their students according to their assigned programs for the entire study period (2 years), including the summertime.

Program fidelity will be assessed in two ways: 1). using the teacher assessment data generated by experienced evaluators from each program, as per standard practice for both the TOM and PTL programs and 2). by our own classroom observations. Both programs have established methods of assessing teacher fidelity (Bodrova & Leong, 2007; Eden & Huggins, 2001). Successful implementation of the TOM program takes several months to achieve and is said to reach acceptable fidelity levels around March of the first year. Fidelity is assessed periodically, over the first two years of implementation. The YMCA conducts teacher assessments that include PTL fidelity measures annually, around April. We will use the results from the early spring (April) assessments in the two years of the study, for both programs, to determine the teachers' implementation fidelity to their respective programs.