Teacher and Child Factors Associated with Emotion Talk between Teachers and Preschoolers Displaying Elevated Externalizing Behaviors

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: Talking about emotions with their caregivers help young children develop emotional competence, and is particularly beneficial for children who display elevated externalizing behaviors. However, prior descriptive work has shown that teacher-child emotion talk in preschool classrooms is scarce. As children are spending increasing amounts of time in preschool programs, there is value in understanding the factors associated with teacher-child emotion talk for supporting these types of interactions. In this study, child and teacher factors associated with teacher-child emotion talk frequency were examined. Participants included 183 preschool teachers and 470 children rated by their teachers as displaying elevated externalizing behaviors in a mix of federally funded (Head Start), state funded, and private preschool programs within two eastern states in the United States. Emotion talk frequency was observed in the context of a standardized, dyadic teacher-child storybook reading task. Results from a multilevel model showed that emotion talk frequency was primarily explained by differences between teachers. Particularly, teachers talked with children about emotions more often when they (1) held an early childhood major and (2) were observed to engage in more responsive teaching. Policy or Practice: Results identify malleable teacher factors linked to teacher-child emotion talk frequency. Findings also highlight the role of preschool teachers as socializers of young children’s emotions and suggest the need for future research to understand how the quality of emotion talk varies between and within teachers.

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was supported by a grant awarded to Amanda P. Williford by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, through Grant R324A100215 respectively to the University of Virginia. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the US Department of Education. The authors wish to thank the generous programs, teachers, families, and children who participated in this study. We are also grateful to all project staff for their contributions to this work.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Two sets of sensitivity analysis were conducted in which models were estimated excluding (1) the Banking Time condition and (2) the Banking Time and Child Time conditions. Results were largely not sensitive to sample restrictions and the pattern of results was the same. The only exception was that cognitive facilitation was not significant at the p < .10 level when the samples were restricted.