Home learning environment across time: the role of early years HLE and background in predicting HLE at later ages

ABSTRACT

This study explores how various measures of home learning environment (HLE) collected at different ages are related to each other and explores associations when the effects of significant child and family characteristics are controlled for. Different age-appropriate measures of the HLE were constructed at ages 3, 7, 11, and 14. The measures were derived from parents’ reports (3, 7, and 11), but at age 14 both adolescents’ self-reports and parents’ questionnaires responses were used. Multilevel models tested the effects of earlier measures of HLE on later measures, while the same set of individual and family characteristics were controlled. The early years HLE measure was a significant predictor of later measures of HLE across different phases of education (primary and secondary school). The strength of the relationships between different HLE measures depended on the time lag between measurements but also on the nature of the activities covered in each dimension.

KEYWORDS:

• Home learning environment
• parent–child activities
• enrichment activities
• longitudinal
• multilevel modelling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Katalin Toth was at the time of the study a Research Officer at the University of Oxford.

Pam Sammons is Professor of Education at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at the Jesus College.

Kathy Sylva is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oxford. She is also affiliated with the Jesus College.

Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at the University of Oxford.

Iram Siraj is Professor of Child Development & Education at the University of Oxford.

Brenda Taggart is a Senior Research Officer at the UCL Institute of Education, London.

ORCID

Katalin Toth http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9387-3614

Pam Sammons http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6988-6784

Kathy Sylva http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1440-6277

Edward Melhuish http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2273-0894

Iram Siraj http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6752-881X

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 Family SES was calculated by considering the highest SES status of the mother or the father in their current occupation at entry to the study.

2 Based on data collected by parent questionnaires completed when students were in Key Stage 1 (ages 5–6 years) of primary school.

3 These continuous measures were used as HLE outcomes (dependent variables) in the multilevel models.

4 These categorical versions of the HLE measures were used as predictors of later HLE (dependent variables) in the multilevel models.

5 Effect sizes (ES) provide a measure of the strength of the relationships between different predictors and the outcomes under study. For more details on ES, see Elliot and Sammons (2004).

Additional information

Funding

This study is part of a research project funded by the Department of Education, UK.