An evaluation of the relative efficacy of and children's preferences for teaching strategies that differ in amount of teacher directedness.

The manner in which teachers mediate children's learning varies across early childhood classrooms. In this study, we used a multielement design to evaluate the efficacy of three commonly implemented strategies that varied in teacher directedness for teaching color- and object-name relations. Strategy 1 consisted of brief exposure to the target relations followed by an exclusively child-led play period in which correct responses were praised. Strategy 2 was similar except that teachers prompted the children to vocalize relations and corrected errors via model prompts. Strategy 3 incorporated the same procedures as Strategy 2 except that a brief period of teacher-initiated trials was arranged; these trials involved the use of prompt delay between questions and prompts, and correct responses resulted in tokens and back-up activity reinforcers. Children's preferences for the different teaching strategies were also directly assessed. Strategy 3 was most effective in promoting the acquisition and generalization of the color- and object-name relations and was also most preferred by the majority of children, Strategy 1 was the least effective, and Strategy 2 was typically the least preferred. Implications for the design of early educational environments based on evidence-based values are discussed.