With national grant, U. profs set to study learning traits

Thanks to a pair of Penn professors, primary schools will soon have a new means of measuring the progress of their students without relying on pure standardized tests. Through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Graduate School of Education professors Paul McDermott and John Fantuzzo will work to advance the understanding of learning behaviors of young children. The team will partner with 89 Philadelphia centers for Head Start -- a non-profit, federally-funded preschool program for children from low income families -- representing 2,000 students under the age of five. The team will also work closely with the School District of Philadelphia's Office of Early Childhood. "We are looking to research learning behaviors as they develop in Head Start environments and develop a curriculum specifically for Head Start," McDermott said. Learning behaviors are learned skills such as persistence, attentiveness and problem-solving techniques. The study will investigate how learning behaviors contribute to school success. In national studies, it has been shown that learning behaviors help predict future learning problems or social adjustment problems. "A big part of the study is to follow students and see if they are having trouble," McDermott said. "If they are, we then develop a suitable intervention program." By following the development of learning behaviors throughout early childhood, the research team will use the information to develop a curriculum that is appropriate to each child's age and ability. The study seeks to provide an alternative to the psychologists who use standardized tests to study student ability and progress. "The problem with tests such as IQ tests is that they test information that is not teachable, whereas learning behavior is teachable," McDermott said. The research comes on the heels of President-elect George W. Bush's announcement emphasizing the importance of early education and the need for increased funding for preschool programs. The research also fits closely with the Graduate School of Education's mission of urban outreach, McDermott said. Study findings will be used by Head Start to increase school readiness among preschool children and help inform policy decisions regarding early childcare. The research will last three years and will follow the Philadelphia students until at least the end of the first grade, where each student will be individually tested. Hundreds of classroom teachers and 12 doctorate students will help with the research.