Long Term Effects of Children’s Non-Cognitive Dispositions at School Entry on Academic Outcomes

The paper investigates the role of kindergarten children’s non-cognitive dispositions on educational outcomes in grade 3 from a longitudinal perspective. Most research on early educational inequality sets focus on school readiness in terms of children’s cognitive skill development. Building on Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, we argue that non-cognitive dispositions and attitudes toward learning and school might play an equally important role in generating unequal educational chances between children of different social strata.

We study these questions using a quantitative approach. We use data of the kindergarten cohort of the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), a longitudinal study that has been conducted since 2008. The kindergarten cohort follows children from kindergarten into primary and then secondary school (N=3.000). Data from waves 1, 2 and 5 are used, following target persons from age 4 (before school entry) to grade 3 in elementary school. Variables stem from parent interviews, as well as kindergarten teacher and school teacher interviews. Standardized competency tests before school entry enable us to estimate the effects of non-cognitive dispositions net of children’s cognitive skill development before school entry.

We show that there is evidence of (1) social inequality in children’s non-cognitive dispositions before school entry, (2) effects of children’s non-cognitive dispositions before school entry on educational outcomes later in the educational career in grade 3 and also analyze whether (3) school-related non-cognitive dispositions (partially) mediate the effect of social class on educational outcomes.

We show that non-cognitive dispositions before school entry predict academic success later on in the educational career. Dispositions and attitudes towards learning affect academic achievement beyond cognitive skills.