Statistics Canada - Government of Canada
Accessibility: General informationSkip all menus and go to content.Home - Statistics Canada logo Skip main menu and go to secondary menu. Français 1 of 5 Contact Us 2 of 5 Help 3 of 5 Search the website 4 of 5 Canada Site 5 of 5
Skip secondary menu and go to the module menu. The Daily 1 of 7
Census 2 of 7
Canadian Statistics 3 of 7 Community Profiles 4 of 7 Our Products and Services 5 of 7 Home 6 of 7
Other Links 7 of 7

Warning View the most recent version.

Archived Content

Information identified as archived is provided for reference, research or recordkeeping purposes. It is not subject to the Government of Canada Web Standards and has not been altered or updated since it was archived. Please "contact us" to request a format other than those available.

Skip module menu and go to content.

Methods and procedures

Participants
Measures
Data analysis and statistical procedures

Participants

The children studied here included all 5-year-olds in the third longitudinal cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY; see Appendix A).  These children were born between April and December in 1997, and were 5 years old as of December 31, 2002. At the time of interview, they ranged from 57 to 65 months old. Altogether 3,923 children were included in the sample, representing approximately 360,000 5-year-olds in the Canadian population. Note that because of the sample selection procedure, no children who were born in the first four months of the year are included in the study; therefore, conclusions apply to a population of 5-year-olds that is relatively young.

Measures

Measures of readiness to learn at school

The domains of readiness to learn at school examined in this paper include:

  1. Language and communication skill
  2. Academic skill
  3. Self-regulation of learning
  4. Self-control of behaviour
  5. Social competence and independence

Much of the information in the survey was provided by the person most knowledgeable about the child, usually the mother. She provided information about herself, the household and family, and the child. Direct measures of the child’s abilities were also taken. These included a test of receptive vocabulary, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Revised (PPVT-R); a Number Knowledge Assessment; and “Who Am I?”, which is a test of developmental level that assesses the ability of a child to copy shapes and  to reproduce symbols like letters, words and numbers (De Lemos 2002). 

Some of the measures available within the NLSCY data set for each of the domains of readiness to learn under study are listed below. Details about the measures appear in Appendix B.

  1. Language and communication skill
    Receptive vocabulary score
    Communication skill score (age 3 and age 5)
  2. Academic skill
    Number knowledge score
    Copying and symbol use score
  3. Self-regulation of learning
    Attention score (age 3 and age 5)
    Work effort score (age 3 and age 5)
    Curiosity level (age 3 and age 5)
  4. Self-control of behaviour score (age 3 and age 5)
  5. Social competence and independence
    Cooperative play (age 3 and age 5)
    Independence in dressing (age 3 and age 5)
    Independence in cleanliness (age 3 and age 5)

Child and family characteristics (demographic variables)

Several child and family characteristics were included as predictor variables in the analyses. They included: sex of the child, household income level (four levels: see Appendix B), parent education level (high school or less than high school/more than high school), family structure (one-parent/two-parent), country of birth of parent (not Canada/Canada), kindergarten attendance of child (not attending/attending), community size (five levels, rural to 500,000 and over: see Appendix B), and province of residence.

This report presents an overview of readiness to learn measures for all child and family characteristics. More detailed analyses in the present report focus on sex of the child and household income level.

Home environment variables

The NLSCY data set contains several variables that measure aspects of the home environment of children (see Appendix B). These include family environment and participation by the child in group activities. Family environment variables include:

  1. Positive parent-child interaction
  2. Cognitive stimulation in the home
    Daily reading to the child
    Daily number use with the child

Parents were asked how often their child participated in several different kinds of  group activities. These included:

  1. Participation in organized sports
  2. Participation in unorganized sports
  3. Participation in lessons in physical activities
  4. Participation in lessons in the arts

Parents were asked whether the child attended any early childhood education program or activity, such as nursery school, play group, drop-in centre and others (see Appendix B). Participation in one or more such activities at age 3, two years before the readiness to learn measures, was used as a predictor variable in the investigation.

Data analysis and statistical procedures

Statistical and substantive significance. Because of the large size of the sample under study, many statistics were statistically significant even though the effects were small. Unless noted otherwise, only effects that were both statistically and substantively significant as defined in Appendix C (Data analysis) are reported as significant in this paper.

Are there differences in readiness to learn measures between demographic groups? To answer this question, the means of all continuous readiness to learn measures at age 5 were compared for the eight child and family characteristics under study. The categorical readiness to learn measures were cross-tabulated with the child and family characteristics, to determine whether there were important differences in readiness to learn between demographic groups.

Do home environment variables predict readiness to learn at school, and if so, do they explain differences between children at different income levels? This question was answered by comparing the means of the continuous measures for the seven home environment variables, and cross-tabulating the categorical readiness to learn measures with the home environment variables, in order to determine if there were important readiness differences linked to home environment. Next, the categorical measures of home environment were cross-tabulated with the eight child and family characteristics (that is, the demographic variables), to establish whether there were important differences between demographic groups in these home environment variables. Finally, where a home environment variable predicted readiness to learn, and household income predicted both the home environment variable and the readiness to learn measure, an analysis was undertaken to discover whether the household income level predicted readiness to learn indirectly, by way of the environment variable. The purpose was to establish whether the home environment variable explained part of the difference in readiness to learn between lower and higher income level children. These statistical procedures are described in detail in Appendix C.

A separate set of analyses was undertaken to look at possible links between early childhood education activities at age 3 and readiness to learn measures at age 5. Because this age 3 variable was strongly linked to household income, the analysis was undertaken separately for the four household income levels. Within each income level, the means of continuous readiness to learn measures at age 5 were compared for children who did and did not participate in early childhood education activities at age 3, and the categorical readiness to learn measures were cross-tabulated with the participation variable, to determine whether there were important differences in readiness to learn among them.

When do differences in readiness to learn measures between demographic groups develop? A series of analyses was undertaken that looked back in time to try to discover whether the differences in readiness to learn that were found at age 5 between girls and boys and between children with different household income levels were already apparent two years earlier. Readiness to learn measures at age 3 were compared between girls and boys and between household income levels using mean comparisons and cross-tabulations. Change scores between age 3 and age 5 and three-way contingency tables that included readiness to learn measures at both ages were analyzed, to determine whether girls and boys or children at different income levels differed in their patterns of change over time.

 


Home | Search | Contact Us | Français Top of page
Date modified: 2006-11-27 Important Notices
Online catalogue Main page Objective Background and rationale Methods and procedures Results Summary and conclusions Tables and figures References Appendices More information Full content in PDF About the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth Other issues in the series _satellite.pageBottom(); >