Effects of the "Bright Start" program in kindergarten on teachers' use of mediation and children’s cognitive modifiability

Two studies were done to investigate the effects of participation in a cognitive early education program, Bright Start, on teachers' use of mediated learning strategies and on children's cognitive modifiability and task‐intrinsic motivation. In Study 1,11 teachers who had been trained in and had taught Bright Start in their classrooms were compared to 11 teachers who had not had this training or experience, using an observation instrument to assess their use of mediational techniques in their classes, following one year of application of the program. There was evidence of greater use of mediation in the Bright Start group than In the control group, especially in the category of Mediation for Transcendence. In Study 2,51 socio economically disadvantaged children in kindergarten were randomly assigned to experimental (n=25) and control (n = 26) groups. Two of Bright Start's seven "cognitive small‐group" units were systematically applied, for 3 months, with the experimental children while children in a control group received a skills‐based but not cognitively oriented program. Both static and dynamic tests were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. Children in the Bright Start group improved their performance on cognitive tasks and showed a higher level of task‐intrinsic motivation than did those in the control group. The change scores on dynamic assessment tasks were compared at post‐treatment. The experimental group showed an overall higher performance than did the control group at pre‐ and post‐teaching phases of the Children's Analogical Thinking Modifiability (CATM) and Complex Figure tests. Significant Treatment X Time (pre‐ and post‐teaching) interactions indicated that the Bright Start group improved its performance from pre‐ to post‐teaching more than did the control group. The results are discussed in relation to developmental aspects and previous findings