Department of Teacher Education, University of Turku, Finland.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2018 Jun;88(2):192-215. doi: 10.1111/bjep.12217. Epub 2018 Mar 25.
Only a handful of longitudinal studies have explored the effects of both parents in early parenthood on children's cognitive development, and no study has controlled for simultaneous early childhood education and care (ECEC) experiences.
To examine the similarity of each parent's cognitive guidance and contribution to children's pre-mathematical outcomes across parent gender while controlling for amount of ECEC.
A longitudinal study on 66 Finnish two-parent families and their children.
Both parents' autonomy support and scaffolding behaviour were observed during play interactions with the child at 2;0. Children's numerical and spatial skills were tested at 3;0 and 4;0. Parental reports on amount of ECEC in months were collected at 2;0, 3;0, and 4;0.
The two parenting constructs were conceptually similar across parent gender as demonstrated by fairly strong measurement equivalence. While mothers on average showed more scaffolding and equal amounts of autonomy support compared to fathers during play interaction, they displayed less variability in the former and more variability in the latter behaviour. The contribution of mothers' and fathers' cognitive guidance was more similar for children's numerical than spatial development. Both parents' education positively predicted autonomy support but not amount of ECEC exposure, which was positively related to numerical development. As expected, parents' education did not predict ECEC exposure, and child gender was not related to child outcomes.
The findings are discussed in relation to measurement invariance and gender-neutral parenting in the context of early childhood.
仅有少数几项纵向研究探讨了父母双方在早期育儿阶段对儿童认知发展的影响，而且没有研究控制同时进行的幼儿期教育和保育（ECEC）体验。
在控制 ECEC 数量的情况下，检验每个父母对儿童学前数学成绩的认知指导和贡献在父母性别上的相似性。
一项针对 66 个芬兰双亲家庭及其子女的纵向研究。
在 2 岁时通过与孩子的游戏互动观察父母双方的自主支持和支架行为；在 3 岁和 4 岁时测试儿童的数和空间技能；在 2 岁、3 岁和 4 岁时收集父母关于 ECEC 数量的报告。
这两个教养结构在父母性别上具有概念上的相似性，表现出相当强的测量等效性。虽然母亲在与孩子游戏互动时平均表现出更多的支架和等量的自主支持，但她们在前一种行为中的变异性较小，在后一种行为中的变异性较大。母亲和父亲的认知指导对儿童的数值发展比对空间发展的贡献更为相似。父母的教育程度均正向预测自主支持，但不预测 ECEC 暴露量，而 ECEC 暴露量与数值发展呈正相关。正如预期的那样，父母的教育程度不预测 ECEC 暴露量，而儿童性别与儿童的结果无关。
这些发现将在幼儿期的测量不变性和性别中立育儿的背景下进行讨论。
