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Links Between Preschoolers' BehavioralRegulation and School Readiness Skills:The Role of Child GenderSeung-Hee Son a , Kangyi Lee b & Miyoung Sung ca The University of Utahb Seoul National University , South Koreac Seokyeong University , South KoreaPublished online: 30 Apr 2013.

To cite this article: Seung-Hee Son , Kangyi Lee & Miyoung Sung (2013) Links Between Preschoolers'Behavioral Regulation and School Readiness Skills: The Role of Child Gender, Early Education andDevelopment, 24:4, 468-490, DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2012.675548

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Links Between Preschoolers’ Behavioral Regulation andSchool Readiness Skills: The Role of Child Gender

Seung-Hee Son

The University of Utah

Kangyi Lee

Seoul National University, South Korea

Miyoung Sung

Seokyeong University, South Korea

Research Findings: We examined relations among preschoolers’ behavioral regulation, gender, and

school readiness outcomes in preacademic and classroom skills using a sample of South Korean pre-

schoolers aged 3–5 (N¼ 229). Behavioral regulation was assessed using a direct measure, the Head–

Toes–Knees–Shoulders task, which requires children to switch rules by responding in the opposite

way to 4 different oral commands. Results demonstrated nonsignificant gender differences in beha-

vioral regulation and academic skills but significant gender differences in classroom work-related

skills and social skills, with higher scores for girls. Multilevel path modeling revealed that behavioral

regulation predicted none of the preacademic skills and classroom behaviors after child age, gender,

verbal intelligence, maternal education, and classroom nesting were controlled. However, there was

an interaction effect of behavioral regulation and gender for early reading; the contribution of beha-

vioral regulation to early reading was positive and stronger for boys. Practice or Policy: These

results suggest that behavioral regulation is not an overall strong predictor of school readiness in

South Korean children. Early educators need to support the development of behavioral regulation

skills, especially for boys, as these skills may work as an important path to school readiness when

children lack other classroom social strategies and resources.

Children who are equipped with foundational competencies tend to have better school transition

experiences and success in later academic achievement (Duncan et al., 2007; Pianta & Cox,

1999). Many important competencies contribute to successful school readiness, including cog-

nitive skills, social skills, and self-regulation (Duncan et al., 2007; La Paro & Pianta, 2000;

National Research Council and Institute of Medicine, 2000). Among these, self-regulation,

especially behavioral aspects of self-regulation, including attention, working memory, and

inhibitory control (Bronson, 2000), have been emphasized in a substantial body of research

(McClelland, Morrison, & Holmes, 2000; Neitzel & Stright, 2003). Given the importance of

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Seung-Hee Son, University of Utah, 225 South 1400 E.

Alfred Emery Building, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. E-mail: seunghee.son@utah.edu

Early Education and Development, 24: 468–490

Copyright # 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1040-9289 print/1556-6935 online

DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2012.675548

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school readiness skills for later school achievement (Duncan et al., 2007; La Paro & Pianta,

2000; McClelland, Acock, & Morrison, 2006; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002), preschoolers’

behavioral regulation and its links to school readiness skills warrant more investigation. Previous

studies conducted in North America have found a contribution of preschoolers’ behavioral

regulation to school readiness skills of preacademic learning (i.e., early literacy, mathematics,

and language) and classroom behaviors (i.e., work-related skills and interpersonal social skills;

Blair, 2002; Howse, Calkins, Anastopoulos, Keane, & Shelton, 2003; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs,

1999; McClelland et al., 2000, 2006; Miech, Essex, & Goldsmith, 2001; von Suchodoletz,

Trommsdorff, Heikamp, Wieber, & Gollwitzer, 2009). The associations between behavioral

regulation and school readiness outcomes were not simple: Gender seemed to play an important

role in the associations (Matthews, Ponitz, & Morrison, 2009; Ponitz, Rimm-Kaufman, Brock, &

Nathanson, 2009; Ready, LoGerfo, Burkam, & Lee, 2005), such that girls tended to have more

advanced behavioral regulation and control skills than boys, which were then linked to girls’

advantages in school readiness and achievement (Matthews et al., 2009).

Although these studies demonstrate the interplay of gender, behavioral regulation, and school

readiness skills, there is scant research on this relationship outside of North America. A few

available studies in East Asian cultures have indicated that preschoolers in these cultures tend

to have advanced behavioral regulation skills (Oh & Lewis, 2008; Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses,

& Lee, 2006). But given cultural beliefs and expectations about regulatory behaviors and gender

differences, it is not clear whether behavioral regulation is uniquely associated with school readi-

ness skills and whether gender is related to behavioral regulation and school readiness skills in

these cultures.

The present study attempted to answer these questions using a South Korean sample. South

Korea is one of the East Asian countries in which the early development of regulatory skills has

been noted (Oh & Lewis, 2008), along with the existence of relatively strong gender expecta-

tions for social behaviors (S.-Y. Park & Cheah, 2005). We compared the behavioral regulation

of Korean boys and girls and examined its links to preacademic skills and classroom behaviors

during the preschool years.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEHAVIORAL REGULATION SKILLS

Behavioral regulation encompasses cognitive operations under the broader construct of

self-regulation, as opposed to more affective processes (Baumeister & Vohs, 2004). Behavioral

regulation involves several executive functioning processes, such as attention, working memory,

and inhibitory control (Bronson, 2000; Zelazo, Carter, Reznick, & Frye, 1997). Attention plays a

role in focusing on tasks, accessing working memory, and completing tasks. One of the most

critical periods of attention development is the preschool period, when children begin to acquire

sustained attention (Siegler & Alibali, 2005). Attention skills have been found to predict cogni-

tive achievement (Blair & Razza, 2007) as well as interpersonal skills (Raver, Blackburn, Ban-

croft, & Torp, 1999). Working memory allows people to maintain information in their mind

while processing new stimuli and develops continually during early childhood and adolescence

(Jarrold & Bayliss, 2007). Working memory has been found to be linked with language, literacy,

and mathematical skills (Adams, Bourke, & Willis, 1999; Bull & Scerif, 2001; Gathercole, Allo-

way, Willis, & Adams, 2005; Kail, 2003). Finally, inhibitory control is a foundational aspect of

BEHAVIORAL REGULATION AND SCHOOL READINESS SKILLS 469

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behavioral regulation, controlling automatic responses by assisting children to restrain irrelevant

responses and to initiate nondominant but adaptive solutions. Preschool children as young as 3

years old begin to develop inhibitory control (Dowsett & Livesey, 2000). This skill has been

suggested as a positive predictor of early literacy and mathematics skills (Blair & Razza,

2007; Bull & Scerif, 2001; Passolunghi & Siegel, 2001) and a negative predictor of behavior

problems (Kochanska, Murray, Jacques, & Koenig, 1996).

Although each of these executive functional processes plays a regulatory role, these processes

were found to be highly correlated with one another and work together as a single skill in con-

ducting a behavioral task during early childhood (Wiebe, Espy, & Charak, 2008). A cognitively

challenging behavior task usually requires the synchronized operation of these executive

processes for its successful completion (Blair, 2002).

Successful regulation of the three integrated cognitive components was found to work as a

contributing factor to academic learning (i.e., early literacy and mathematics) and classroom

behaviors (i.e., work-related and interpersonal social skills; McClelland, Cameron, Wanless,

& Murray, 2007; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care

Research Network, 2003; von Suchodoletz et al., 2009), possibly by contributing to attention

control (Blair & Razza, 2007), execution of classroom work (McClelland et al., 2000), and beha-

vior management (Neitzel & Stright, 2003) in academic and social tasks. The relationship

between children’s behavioral regulation and school outcome has been demonstrated during

the preschool years (Bierman et al., 2008; McClelland, Cameron, Connor, et al., 2007; Raver

et al., 2011; Vazsonyi & Huang, 2010) as well as during the elementary school years (Blair

& Razza, 2007; Howse et al., 2003; Matthews et al., 2009; McClelland et al., 2000; Monette,

Bigras, & Guay, 2011; Souvignier & Mokhlesgerami, 2006). However, most of the extant

studies on behavioral regulation have focused on North American children; there is a gap in

understanding of the links between behavioral regulation and school outcome in Asian cultures,

specifically in South Korea.

CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT OF BEHAVIORAL REGULATIONIN SOUTH KOREA

Because studies on the behavioral regulation skills of young children have been conducted

mostly in North America, research in other cultures might contribute to a fuller understanding

of the nature of behavioral regulation development. Until now, cultural differences have been

noted in the level of children’s behavioral regulation skills, especially between East Asian

and North American children. Specifically, comparisons of Korean and Chinese children with

U.S. preschoolers demonstrated that Asian preschoolers tend to have advanced behavioral regu-

lation skills (Oh & Lewis, 2008; Sabbagh et al., 2006). Specifically, Korean children younger

than 3.5 years of age showed ceiling effects on some inhibitory control measures that have been

found as valid for Western preschool-age children (Oh & Lewis, 2008). Chinese children had

higher scores than U.S. preschoolers in an aggregated measure of executive functioning as well

as individual measures of inhibition and attention control after age was controlled (Lan, Legare,

Ponitz, Li, & Morrison, 2011; Sabbagh et al., 2006), whereas Taiwanese children had similar

levels of and variability in behavioral regulation skills (Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Chen,

& Chen, 2011).

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Advanced behavioral regulation in children from these countries is not surprising given the

cultural expectations and experiences of young East Asian children. Chinese parents expect

children as young as 2 years old to master impulse control, whereas U.S. parents do not have

these expectations until the child enters the preschool years (Chen et al., 1998). Furthermore,

Asian preschools seem to provide different experiences in preschool classrooms, which highly

encourage children’s behavioral control (Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989). For example, the

organization of curriculum and activities in Korean preschools tends to be strict, with the exist-

ence of a national preschool=kindergarten curriculum and the extensive use of teacher-directed

group activities—even with the existence of widespread philosophies of developmentally appro-

priate practices (French & Song, 1998; McMullen et al., 2005). These cultural experiences may

lead children in East Asian countries, including those in Korea, to develop behavioral regulation

skills relatively early on.

An interesting question to pursue would be whether children’s behavioral regulation is pre-

dictive of their school readiness outcomes in East Asian cultures with relatively high-level

expectations and stimulation of behavioral management. It is possible that behavioral regulation

may significantly predict early academic and social outcomes, with teachers’ high expectations

and emphasis on children’s behavioral regulation. Or it is possible that given the overall higher

levels of skills and stimulation reported in previous research, there may be less variability in

behavioral regulation, which would make regulation skills not very predictive of academic or

social outcomes in this population.

Some recent studies have begun to examine the contribution of Asian preschoolers’

behavioral regulation to academic skills and classroom task behaviors. Chinese preschoolers’

behavioral regulation was predictive of early math but not early reading after the effects of chil-

dren’s age and their attention control skills were considered (Lan et al., 2011); and behavioral

regulation of preschoolers in Taiwan, South Korea, and China was found to predict early literacy

and math skills after child age, child gender, maternal education, and teacher report of classroom

behavioral regulation skills were controlled (Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Chen, et al., 2011;

Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Ponitz, et al., 2011). Overall, however, there is limited evidence

of the role of behavioral regulation in East Asian children. Moreover, inconsistencies exist in the

results of these limited studies that seem to stem from the different sets of control variables con-

sidered in each model. Although researchers have indicated intelligence as an important covari-

ate confounded with cognitive processes in behavioral regulation and have tended to control

child intelligence when examining the unique predictability of self-regulation in North American

studies (Ayduk, Rodriguez, Mischel, Shoda, & Wright, 2007; Blair & Razza, 2007; McClelland

et al., 2006), none of the previous self-regulation studies with Asian children controlled for child

intelligence. Thus, it is hard to determine the unique predictability of behavioral regulation for

the school readiness skills of East Asian children apart from the predictability of their general

intelligence.

GENDER AND BEHAVIORAL REGULATION SKILLS

During the preschool years, many children begin to experience different tasks that require beha-

vioral regulation tapping attention, working memory, and inhibitory control, and significant

variability has been shown in preschoolers’ behavioral regulation skills in performing these tasks

BEHAVIORAL REGULATION AND SCHOOL READINESS SKILLS 471

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(Rothbart, Posner, & Kieras, 2006). Several child factors seem to contribute to the variability,

including gender (Matthews et al., 2009; Ponitz, Rimm-Kaufman, et al., 2009; Silverman,

2003) and intelligence (Ayduk et al., 2007; Calero, Garcıa-Martın, Jimenez, Kazen, & Araque,

2007), along with family background characteristics such as parent education (H.-S. Kim &

Kang, 2005; Miech et al., 2001). Among these factors, gender has been considered in many stu-

dies as a consistent predictor of self-regulation (Kendall & Wilcox, 1979; Silverman, 2003). If

there are early gender differences in the core executive functions, then they may explain gender

discrepancies in other kinds of child outcomes predicted by behavioral regulation (Matthews

et al., 2009).

Studies have often revealed higher behavioral regulation skills for girls than for boys in

normal as well as clinical samples during infancy (Weinberg, Tronick, Cohn, & Olson,

1999), the early school years (McClelland et al., 2000; Ponitz, Rimm-Kaufman, et al.,

2009), and middle childhood (Sarkis, Sarkis, Marshall, & Archer, 2005). Similarly, gender

differences, with advanced skills for girls, have been reported in children’s academic achieve-

ment and social skills from the early school years (Birch & Ladd, 1998; Ready et al., 2005) to

middle childhood and adolescence (Duckworth & Seligman, 2006; Entwisle, Alexander, &

Olson, 1997). When considered simultaneously, both gender and behavioral regulation have

been found to uniquely predict academic skills during early the school years (Matthews et al.,

2009; Ready et al., 2005).

Previous studies with South Korean children have reported some evidence of gender differ-

ences, with most of the studies demonstrating girls’ advantages in measures of classroom

self-regulation assessed by teacher report (Ahn & Kwon, 2005; S.-Y. Kim & Ahn, 2006). Only

one study found gender differences in behavioral regulation skills using a direct child assessment

(Ji & Lee, 2009). Given the limited evidence, a decisive pattern of gender differences on a direct

measure of behavioral regulation has not been established in South Korean preschoolers. It is

possible that substantial gender differences in behavioral regulation might not exist in South

Korean preschoolers with rich educational experiences that stimulate their regulation skills

(French & Song, 1998). Or significant gender differences may exist in Korea, too, with biologi-

cal differences (Else-Quest, Hyde, Goldsmith, & van Hulle, 2006) and gender-specific expecta-

tions and practices, especially in relation to children’s social and emotional regulation skills

(Gretarsson & Gelfand, 1988; S.-Y. Park & Cheah, 2005). For example, Korean mothers

reported that boys’ developmental levels may explain negative emotion regulation skills, but

among girls negative emotion regulation skills are due to moral reasons, not just developmental

levels (S.-Y. Park & Cheah, 2005). These gender-specific practices may lead to gender differ-

ences in regulation skills. However, it is not clear whether South Korean parents have

gender-specific beliefs about their children’s behavioral regulation skills as they do their social

and emotional skills.

One interesting gender-related finding that was reported by S.-Y. Kim and Ahn (2006) is that

the predictability of learning-related skills, including classroom behavior management, for

academic achievement was stronger for Korean boys than for girls. The authors speculated that

the benefits of behavioral management skills for school outcome may be weaker for girls

because girls tend to adjust and participate in environments and tasks structured by adults

(e.g., school work; Birch & Ladd, 1998) relatively better than boys. What is not clear is whether

the role of gender as a moderator between children’s classroom behavior and school outcome

can also be applied in the case of associations between children’s behavioral regulation and early

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school outcome. Korean society tends to maintain strong gender beliefs with respect to the social

and emotional skills of children by expecting higher levels of social behaviors from girls (S.-Y.

Park & Cheah, 2005), and this may lead to or exaggerate gender differences in the classroom

behaviors of children. For children who exhibit less managed classroom behaviors (e.g., boys),

higher behavioral regulation skills that help children initiate, sustain, or inhibit attention and

behaviors can provide added benefits to their school outcome.

In sum, the preschool years are when children begin to develop behavioral regulation skills

tapping simultaneous processing of attention, working memory, and inhibitory control. The early

behavioral regulation skills seem to vary as a function of child gender and are linked to

children’s school outcomes, at least in North America. The relations among gender, behavioral

regulation, and school outcome suggest the potential benefits of studying complex associations

beyond bivariate relationships, such as a Behavioral Regulation�Gender interaction in

predicting school readiness outcomes.

Studying the role of gender may reveal important variations in young children’s developing

behavioral regulation and their learning of early academic and social skills. However, the poten-

tial complex relations among behavioral regulation, gender, and school readiness outcomes have

not been investigated extensively with diverse samples.

Given the lack of relevant literature, this study examined South Korean preschool children’s

behavioral regulation and its relation to school readiness skills using a direct behavioral regu-

lation measure called the Head–Toes–Knees–Shoulders (HTKS) task (Ponitz, McClelland,

Matthews, & Morrison, 2009). Specifically, this study investigated (a) whether Korean pre-

schoolers’ behavioral regulation predicts their school readiness skills of preacademic achieve-

ment and classroom behaviors and (b) whether the associations between behavioral regulation

and school readiness are moderated by gender. We hypothesized that behavioral regulation in

South Korean preschoolers may be a ‘‘statistically’’ significant predictor of school readiness,

as previous research has demonstrated (Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Chen, et al., 2011;

Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Ponitz, et al., 2011), but may not be a ‘‘substantial’’ predictor

(i.e., may have a small effect size) given the generally ‘‘high’’ stimulation of behavioral regu-

lation in the Korean culture. This point may be especially true when behavioral regulation

is examined along with appropriate confounding variables (e.g., child intelligence) in the

analysis. We also hypothesized that there may be a Gender�Behavioral Regulation interaction

in predicting school readiness outcomes. Given the previous evidence by S.-Y. Kim and Ahn

(2006), we expected to find that benefits of behavioral regulation skills would be stronger for

boys than girls.

METHOD

Participants

Children, parents, and teachers were invited to participate in the study through their preschool=child care center in Seoul and Kyonggi province, a vicinity of Seoul, South Korea. Three centers

were recruited in the area, and each of the centers was located at a different worksite with

differential characteristics; therefore, we expect that our participants represented a range of back-

grounds. One center was housed within a university, another was housed within a company with

mostly blue-collar jobs, and the third was housed in an organization with mostly white-collar

BEHAVIORAL REGULATION AND SCHOOL READINESS SKILLS 473

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jobs. Based on our data collectors’ observation and interviews with the center directors, these

education centers seemed to represent a range of typical Korean early education contexts, which

tend to emphasize behavioral management in classrooms, such as listening to and following

teacher directions in group settings and independent task completion. The first site had seven

classrooms, the second site had three classrooms, and the third site had six classrooms, all of

which participated in the study. All classrooms were age-graded as typical Korean preschools

are (i.e., separate classrooms for 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, and 5-year-olds).

The present study utilized data from 229 children who were recruited from participating

centers. These children were from 43 to 78 months old (M¼ 60.67 months, SD¼ 10.18) at

baseline (see Table 1). There were more boys (60%) than girls (40%). All of the participating

children had behavioral regulation assessment data; 70.7% of children (n¼ 162) had additional

child and family background information provided by their parents.

Procedure

Several child care centers and preschools were contacted during summer. Child recruitment was

conducted in the three centers whose directors agreed to participate. The participant rate was

92%, or 229 children recruited out of 250 children in the participating centers. Data were

collected during the 250 children in the participating centers. Data were collected during the fall,

the middle of the year (i.e., the Korean School year runs from March to February). Among the

229 children, all of whom had behavioral regulation and classroom behavior assessment at

the fall baseline, 10.9% (n¼ 25) of children missed the baseline preacademic assessment and

TABLE 1

Descriptive Statistics for Study Variables (N¼229)

Variable n (%) M SD Range

Child age (in months) 229 60.67 10.18 43.00–78.00

Gender

Girl 92 (40.2)

Boy 137 (59.8)

Verbal intelligence (K-WPPSI Vocabulary), baseline 204 13.76 6.06 2.00–35.00

Mother’s education level 4.63 1.09 3–6

Elementary school 0 (0)

Middle school 0 (0)

High school 37 (16.2)

2-year college 27 (11.8)

University 58 (25.3)

Graduate school 41 (17.9)

Direct measure of behavioral regulation (HTKS), baseline 229 24.25 12.91 0.00–40.00

Early math (K-WPPSI Math) 139 16.10 3.89 7.00–23.00

Early reading (Test of Hangul Word Reading) 136 38.46 16.45 5.00–58.00

Teacher-rated classroom work-related skills (CBRS factor) 183 68.12 10.33 44.00–90.00

Teacher-rated classroom social skills (CBRS factor) 177 50.49 7.42 31.00–65.00

Note. K-WPPSI¼Korean-Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence; HTKS¼Head–Toes–

Knees–Shoulders task; CBRS¼Child Behavior Rating Scale.

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22.7% and 39.3% of children missed the follow-up preacademic and classroom behavior assess-

ments, respectively.

During the fall, Korean research assistants tested participating children’s behavioral

regulation, preacademic skills, and intelligence as a baseline assessment. Children’s behavioral

regulation, preacademic skills, and intelligence were assessed in one 20–30 min session in a

quiet, unused classroom or multipurpose room in a child care center. In addition, classroom

skills, including work-related skills and social skills, were surveyed through a teacher question-

naire. A background questionnaire was sent home for parents to complete the family’s and

child’s demographic information. Finally, follow-up child assessment of preacademic and

classroom behavior skills was conducted in February at the end of the school year using the

same procedure.

Measures

All measures that had not been previously used in South Korea, including behavioral regulation

and classroom behavior measures, were translated into Korean by two native South Korean

scholars in the child development field. Both scholars were fluent in English and Korean.

Measures were back-translated by a bilingual U.S. scholar. Descriptive statistics for all study

variables are reported in Table 1.

Behavioral Regulation

The 20-item HTKS task (Ponitz, McClelland, et al., 2009) was used to measure preschoolers’

behavioral regulation. The HTKS is a more complex version of the Head-to-Toes Task (Ponitz

et al., 2008), based on the Head-and-Feet task (McCabe, Rebello-Britto, Hernandez, &

Brooks-Gunn, 2004). The task was designed to test integrated behavioral regulation skills requir-

ing inhibitory control, attention, and working memory and has been found to be correlated with

parent ratings of inhibitory control and attention (Ponitz, McClelland, et al., 2009). Children

were first directed to follow a command and then asked to respond in an opposite way to

behavioral commands. For example, if the administrator said, ‘‘Touch your toes,’’ the correct

response would be for the child to touch his or her head. The HTKS increases task complexity

by adding two additional commands, ‘‘Touch your knees’’ and ‘‘Touch your shoulders.’’ The

first 10 items use the two commands with head and toes, and the next 10 items involve the

two additional commands with knees and shoulders, for a total of four commands requiring

deliberate, nonautomatic responses. Scoring is 0 (incorrect), 1 (self-correct), or 2 (correct) points.

Self-corrects were scored if children made any discernable motion to the incorrect response but

then corrected themselves. The sum of scores for the 20 items was computed, with a possible

score range of 0–40 points. Research assistants were trained on the HTKS by studying the task

forms, watching videos of trained research assistants administering the task to children, and

practicing with other research assistants.

In the United States, the HTKS and Head-to-Toes Task, a simple version of the HTKS, have

shown strong interrater reliability (Connor et al., 2009). Furthermore, previous research on the

Head-to-Toes Task in Taiwan demonstrated strong interrater reliability (Wanless, McClelland,

Acock, Chen, et al., 2011). A recent cross-cultural study using the current version of the HTKS

BEHAVIORAL REGULATION AND SCHOOL READINESS SKILLS 475

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showed decent interexaminer reliability in South Korea (r¼ .71, p< .001) and also demon-

strated no significant differences in preschool children’s HTKS scores between raters: United

States, F(141, 299)¼ 1.25, p> .05; Taiwan, F(40, 155)¼ 1.08, p> .05; China F(28,

114)¼ 1.28, p> .05 (Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Ponitz, et al., 2011).

The internal validity of the test for the current Korean sample was good; Cronbach’s alpha

reached .95 and Spearman-Brown split-half reliability was .84 for the current sample. Test–retest

reliability of the HTKS was examined for a subset of the current sample (30%, n¼ 72), with two

research assistants testing children at two different dates 1 month apart; the intraclass correlation

coefficient between the repeated testing by two different testers reached .68 (p< .001), indicat-

ing moderately strong test–retest reliability. In addition, there were clear developmental trends in

HTKS scores: When we compared the scores of children grouped based on their biological age 6

months apart, groups of children showed prominent developmental trends in their HTKS scores,

F(5, 214)¼ 18.405, p< .001; that is, older children had higher behavioral regulation skills than

younger children, which reveals the validity of the HTKS for measuring behavioral regulation in

Korean preschool-age children.

Child’s Preacademic Skills

Early reading skills. Korean children’s early reading skills were assessed using the Test of

Hangul Word Reading (Choi & Yi, 2007). Children were asked to pronounce written Korean

alphabet Hangul, including 20 two-syllable words and 20 two-syllable nonsense words, with

each syllable composed of the alphabetic composition principle of either consonant–vowel or

consonant–vowel–consonant combination. Scoring was 0 (incorrect), 1 (correct pronunciation

of one syllable), or 2 (correct pronunciation of both syllables) points. The sum of scores for

the 40 items was computed, and possible scores ranged from 0 to 80 points. In previous research,

the internal consistency of the test was reported as .99, the split-half reliability as .98–.99, and the

test–retest reliability as .93–.97 (Choi & Yi, 2007).

Early mathematics. The math subtest of the Korean-Wechsler Preschool and Primary

Scale of Intelligence (K-WPPSI; H. Park, Kwak, & Park, 1989) was used to measure skills in

math concepts, including relative magnitude (7 items), counting (4 items), and calculation (12

items). Scoring was 0 (incorrect) or 1 (correct) points. The sum of scores for the 23 items

was computed, and possible scores ranged from 0 to 23 points. In previous research, the math

subtest of the K-WPPSI had a Spearman-Brown split-half reliability of .82–.87 and a test–retest

reliability of .68 for 4- to 6-year-old children (H. Park et al., 1989).

Child’s Classroom Behaviors

Teachers completed a 5-point Likert-type scale of 32 items called the Child Behavior Rating

Scale (CBRS; Bronson, Tivnan, & Seppanen, 1995). The CBRS was designed to evaluate chil-

dren’s classroom behaviors, including school task behaviors or work-related skills and social

skills in the classroom. The two constructs of classroom work-related skills and social skills

are what previous researchers have called two components of classroom behavioral skills

(Cooper & Farran, 1991; McClelland et al., 2000, 2006).

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Work-related skills. The first CBRS subscale, teacher-rated classroom work-related skills,

includes 18 dichotomous items that ask about task orientation, engagement, persistence, inde-

pendent working, and effective organization of task-related behaviors, such as ‘‘Concentrates

when working, not easily distracted,’’ ‘‘Responds to instructions and begins appropriate task,’’

‘‘Returns to unfinished tasks after interruption,’’ ‘‘Sees own errors on task and corrects them,’’

and ‘‘Shows satisfaction when completes a project.’’ Cronbach’s alpha was .93 for the 18 items

for the current study. The variable of classroom work-related skills was computed by taking the

sum of the scores of the 18 items.

Social skills. The teacher-rated social skills measure includes 14 dichotomous items,

including ‘‘Willing to share,’’ ‘‘Resolves potential social conflicts with peers,’’ and ‘‘Takes

turns without being told to do so.’’ Cronbach’s alpha was .85 for the 14 items for the current

study. The variable of classroom social skills was computed by taking the sum of the 14 items,

with the two negatively expressed items recoded.

Covariates

In examining the unique contribution of behavioral regulation to children’s school readiness

outcomes, several variables were included as covariates in the analysis, based on the previous

literature: mother’s education level (Sektnan, McClelland, Acock, & Morrison, 2010), child

age (Bisanz, Morrison, & Dunn, 1995; Crone & Whitehurst, 1999), child gender (Matthews

et al., 2009), and child’s verbal intelligence (Ayduk et al., 2007; Calkins & Fox, 2002). Maternal

education, child age, and child gender were obtained from the background questionnaire.

Children’s verbal intelligence was assessed with the vocabulary subtest of the K-WPPSI (H.

Park et al., 1989) during the baseline assessment, in the fall of the school year. The verbal

intelligence assessment required children to identify pictured objects (3 items) and to supply

meanings or definitions of words provided orally (22 items). Scoring was 0 (incorrect) or 1 (cor-

rect) points for picture identification items and 0 (incorrect), 1 (partially correct), or 2 (correct)

points for definition items. Total possible scores ranged from 0 to 47 points. The test was

reported to have a Spearman-Brown split-half reliability of .78–.86 and a test–retest reliability

of .63 for 4- to 6-year-old children (H. Park et al., 1989).

Children’s initial skills were considered as a covariate to assess the development of children’s

school readiness skills. However, because of the relatively short time gap between the baseline

and the end-of-the-year assessment (about 4–5 months), autocorrelations between initial and

follow-up assessments were very high (rs> .70), and we decided not to include initial skills

in the model.

Analytic Strategy

We examined the relations among preschool children’s behavioral regulation and their preaca-

demic skills and classroom behaviors and the role of gender in those relations. Because children

were nested within classrooms (i.e., children shared the same teachers), children’s preacademic

and classroom skills as well as their behavioral regulation may have varied across classrooms.

Therefore, to determine whether we needed to use multilevel analysis, we calculated the intra-

class correlation coefficient of child outcome measures to assess the significance of the

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classroom-level variance. Multilevel modeling results indicated that all of the children’s outcome

measures and behavioral regulation skills had statistically significant variance at the classroom

level except for work-related skills. Among preacademic outcomes, 50.83% of the variance in

early math was at the classroom level, v2(df¼ 15, N¼ 139)¼ 147.71, p< .001 and 37.72% of

the variance in early reading was at the classroom level, v2(df¼ 15, N¼ 136)¼ 91.05,

p< .001. Children’s classroom behaviors, especially teacher-reported social skills, were also

found to have significant classroom-level variance of 9.55%, v2(df¼ 15, N¼ 177)¼ 32.50,

p< .01; teacher-reported work-related skills approached statistical significance with 4.49% of

classroom-level variance, v2(df¼ 15, N¼ 183)¼ 23.31, p< .10. Children’s behavioral regulation

skills had 34.36% of its variance at the classroom level, v2(df¼ 15, N¼ 229)¼ 124.71, p< .001.

Because behavioral regulation skills and most of the child outcome measures had nesting

effects with substantial classroom-level variance, we decided to use multilevel path modeling

using Mplus (B. O. Muthen & Muthen, 2010) for our main analysis. The use of multilevel mod-

eling enabled us to obtain accurate standard error estimates by partitioning the variance in a

child-level outcome into child (Level 1) and classroom (Level 2) sources (Raudenbush & Bryk,

2002). By using a path model, we were able to include all of the child outcome measures in one

multilevel model and control for their covariance. Because we were not interested in

classroom-level predictors of children’s outcome, we did not include any Level 2 predictors

other than controlling for children’s nesting in classrooms.

To strengthen the power of analysis by using all available data simultaneously in the esti-

mation of a modeling, we used full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimation to

handle missing data (L. K. Muthen & Muthen, 2010). FIML uses all available data simul-

taneously in the estimation of a model and produces parameter estimates that are less biased than

other procedures for handling missing data (Baraldi & Enders, 2010). This resulted in a sample

size of 229 children and a sample size of 16 classrooms in our main analysis.

FIML assumes that data are missing at random, which means that the variables correlated

with missingness are included in the model and that the remaining patterns of missingness

are random (Acock, 2005). No test can directly address this assumption, but an indirect way

to address it is to examine whether variables excluded from the model may be related to miss-

ingness (McClelland et al., 2006). Following McClelland and her colleagues’ (2006) procedure,

we created a dummy variable for each variable in our model that had at least 5% missing values.

This resulted in the list of dummy variables of verbal intelligence, maternal education, early

math, early reading, work-related skills, and social skills, recoded as 1 for missing values and

0 for nonmissing values. Then a series of hierarchical logistic regressions were conducted for

each of these dummy variables. For the first step, we entered the variables that were included

in the model (maternal education, child verbal intelligence, gender, age, behavioral regulation,

early math, early reading, work-related skills, and social skills) to see if they would predict miss-

ingness and meet the assumption of missing at random because they were included in the orig-

inal model. For the second step, we entered possible outside auxiliary variables (amount of

preschool=child care experience and home learning environment) to see whether they may have

been related to the missingness and biased the parameter estimates.

Each logistic regression was built for each child outcome. For a model involving early math,

logistic regression indicated that the first block of variables was only significant for one variable,

missingness for early math. Among the variables, maternal education was the only significant

predictor (B¼ .476, Wald¼ 6.373, p< .05); this means that children with mothers with low

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education had significantly more missing data for early math. This was not a problem for the

missing-at-random assumption because maternal education was included in our model. None

of the auxiliary variables entered in the second block were significant. Logistic regressions

for a model involving early reading showed similar results. The first block of variables was only

significant for one variable, missingness for early reading, and maternal education was the only

significant predictor of the missingness in early reading (B¼ .442, Wald¼ 5.701, p< .05). None

of the auxiliary variables entered in the second block were significant. Logistic regressions for a

model involving work-related skills and social skills indicated that none of the first block of

variables and none of the auxiliary variables were significant for missingness on any of the

variables in these models. Together, these results suggested that it was reasonable to assume that

the missing data in our analyses were missing at random, with none of the auxiliary variables

predicting missingness significantly.

RESULTS

Gender Differences in Korean Preschoolers’ Behavioral Regulation and SchoolReadiness Outcomes

Before testing the predictability of behavioral regulation, we checked whether there were any

gender differences in behavioral regulation and school readiness outcomes in South Korean

preschoolers. First we tested gender differences in behavioral regulation scores with analysis

of covariance with age as a covariate and found no statistically significant gender differences

(M¼ 23.90, SD¼ 12.88 for boys; M¼ 24.78, SD¼ 13.01 for girls), F(2, 226)¼ 1.02, p¼ .30

(see Table 2). Levene’s test for equality of variances demonstrated no significant differences

in variability of behavioral regulation skills of boys and girls (F¼ 0.17, p¼ .68, SDboys¼ 12.88,

SDgirls¼ 13.01).

There were no gender differences in children’s preacademic skills, specifically in early math,

at the end of the school year after controlling for age, F(2, 136)¼ 1.73, p¼ .20. For early read-

ing, there were significant gender differences, F(2, 133)¼ 5.14, p¼ .05, with girls having higher

TABLE 2

Girls’ and Boys’ Scores for Behavioral Regulation and School Readiness Outcome Variables

Variable

Girls (n¼ 92) Boys (n¼ 137)

t

ANCOVA (age ascovariate)M SD M SD

Behavioral regulation 24.78 13.01 23.90 12.88 0.51 1.09

Preacademic skills

Early math 16.21 3.25 16.02 4.29 0.30 1.73

Early reading 40.59 14.68 36.96 17.52 1.31 5.14y

Classroom behaviors

Work-related skills 71.49 8.40 65.78 10.91 4.00��� 14.75���

Social skills 52.97 7.41 48.82 6.97 3.79��� 14.37���

Note. ANCOVA¼ analysis of covariance F statistics.yp< .05. ���p< .001.

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reading scores than boys. Significant gender differences were noted for children’s classroom

behaviors: Girls had higher scores than boys in work-related skills, F(2, 180)¼ 14.75,

p< .001, as well as in social skills, F(2, 174)¼ 14.37, p< .001.

Predicting Preacademic Skills and Classroom Behaviors with Behavioral Regulation

We examined whether preschoolers’ behavioral regulation predicted their preacademic skills and

classroom behaviors at the end of the school year after we controlled for the potential covariates

of mother’s education and child’s verbal intelligence, age, and gender at the child level and

classroom nesting at the classroom level in multilevel path analysis. Four children’s outcome

measures were included simultaneously as one path model, and their covariance was controlled.

Results showed that behavioral regulation was not associated with any of the child outcomes

of early math, early reading, work-related skills, or social skills. In contrast, child gender was

found to be a consistent predictor. Compared to girls, boys had significantly lower scores

in early math (standardized coefficient¼�.13, p< .05), early reading (standardized

coefficient¼�.16, p< .05), work-related skills (standardized coefficient¼�.29, p< .001),

and social skills (standardized coefficient¼�.25, p< .001) after the effects of maternal edu-

cation and child’s verbal intelligence, age, and behavioral regulation were considered.

The Effect of the Gender�Behavioral Regulation Interaction on Child Outcome

The analysis of the main effect of behavioral regulation constrained associations between

children’s behavioral regulation and their outcome measures to be equal across children. The pre-

dictability of behavioral regulation may differ depending on child gender, such as in a stronger

impact of having behavioral regulation skills for boys than girls. The differential impact of beha-

vioral regulation might have explained the nonsignificant main effects of behavioral regulation

skills by cancelling out a potentially different extent or direction of its predictability for boys versus

girls. To explore this possibility, we examined the interaction between child gender (male¼ 1) and

behavioral regulation as a predictor of children’s outcome at the end of the school year in addition to

all covariates and main effects in the previous model. Results showed that whereas behavioral

regulation was still not a significant predictor of early reading (standardized coefficient¼�.03,

ns), the predictability of behavioral regulation for early reading was statistically different between

boys and girls (standardized coefficient¼ .31, p< .01). The Gender�Behavioral Regulation

interaction term, however, was not a significant predictor of children’s early math, work-related

skills, and social skills. A final parsimonious path model was run with the interaction term included

only for reading outcome and other nonsignificant interaction terms removed from the model. The

final model showed consistent results, with a significant Gender�Behavioral Regulation interac-

tion term for early reading (standardized coefficient¼ .31, p< .01; see Table 3).

Charting the relations between behavioral regulation and early reading for boys versus girls

(see Figure 1) showed that boys had, overall, lower reading scores than girls. However, the pre-

dictability of behavioral regulation scores for early reading was stronger for boys than girls.

Boys with higher behavioral regulation scores had higher reading scores and boys with lower

behavioral regulation scores showed lower reading scores, whereas girls’ reading scores did

not vary substantially depending on their behavioral regulation scores.

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DISCUSSION

The current study attempts to provide evidence of the role of behavioral regulation and gender

for children’s school readiness outcomes in South Korean preschoolers. We examined the pre-

dictability of behavioral regulation as measured by a direct behavioral assessment (HTKS) for

multiple aspects of Korean preschool children’s school readiness skills at the end of the school

year. In addition, the differential predictability of behavioral regulation depending on child

FIGURE 1 Gender�Behavioral Regulation (BR) interaction on early reading. The three lines represent relations

between child gender and early reading skills for children with (a) high BR skills (skills meanþ 1 SD), (b) medium

BR skills (skills mean), and (c) low BR skills (skills mean �1 SD).

TABLE 3

Maximum Likelihood Standardized Estimates for the Two-Level Path Modeling of Gender

and Behavioral Regulation Predicting School Readiness Outcomes: Final Model

Child-level variable Early math Early reading Work-related skills Social skills

Maternal education .050 �.016 .064 �.004

Child verbal intelligence .359��� .232�� .238��� .191�

Male �.131� �.378��� �.292��� �.253���

Age .181��� �.139 .124 .094

Behavioral regulation .112 �.026 .098 .046

Gender�Behavioral Regulation

interaction

.306��

Note. Coefficients provided here are standardized estimates after nesting in classroom is con-

trolled. Comparative fit index¼ .829; root mean square error of approximation¼ .111; standar-

dized root-mean-square residual Level 1¼ .065, Level 2¼ .187.�p< .05. ��p< .01. ���p< .001.

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gender was examined by considering the Gender�Behavioral Regulation interaction. These

analyses used a rigorous statistical method by taking into account the nesting of children within

classrooms with multilevel path modeling.

Gender Differences in Preschoolers’ Behavioral Regulation and School Readiness

The direct assessment of behavioral regulation using the HTKS showed that the behavioral

regulation skills of Korean preschoolers were not significantly different between boys and girls.

Korean preschoolers did not show significant gender differences in preacademic skills either,

especially in early math. This is in contrast to children in the United States, where girls were

reported to have higher behavioral regulation and academic skills than boys (Matthews et al.,

2009; Ready et al., 2005). However, Korean girls had significantly higher scores than boys in

their classroom behaviors of work-related skills and social skills. With many studies showing

biological differences in the regulation skills of boys and girls (Else-Quest et al., 2006; McIntyre

& Edwards, 2009), we speculated that the nonsignificant gender differences in behavioral regu-

lation may be explained by child-rearing=education beliefs and practices. Korean parents tend to

have a high expectation regarding independent self-regulatory behaviors (J. Kim, 2002), and

Korean preschools tend to put an emphasis on regulation skills such as listening to teacher

directions and task persistence through extended teacher-directed activities and the frequent

use of child-managed table activities of worksheets and flashcards (Farver, Kim, & Lee,

1995; French & Song, 1998). Similarly, the pressure for school readiness in preacademic skills

was reported to be very high for Korean preschoolers (Woo, 1992, cited in J. Kim, Lee, Suen, &

Lee, 2003). With these high-level expectations in behavioral and academic skills, both girls and

boys in Korea may have many experiences for developing these skills, and less gender difference

in these areas may appear in this highly stimulating culture.

However, Korean parents and teachers have been reported to have different acceptance levels

for the social behaviors of boys versus girls: They rated differently the importance of social skills

and reasons of behaviors for boys and girls, representing more traditional gender beliefs (S.-Y.

Park & Cheah, 2005). This gender belief might reinforce gender differences in children’s class-

room behaviors, if there are any, or may reveal itself when teachers rated preschoolers’ class-

room behaviors using our teacher-report measure.

The Importance of Behavioral Regulation for School Readiness Outcomes

The current study demonstrated nonsignificant associations between Korean preschoolers’

behavioral regulation and preacademic skills after child and family covariates and classroom

nesting were controlled. This is an unexpected result because a substantial body of previous studies

has reported that early academic skills are linked to the development of cognitive mechanisms

related to behavioral regulation, including speed of information processing (Diamond, 2002;

Kail, 2003). The results suggest that the current measure of early behavioral regulation skills

may not be the best indicator to discriminate cognitive-related processing in Korean preschoolers.

In addition, behavioral regulation was not a significant predictor of the classroom behaviors

of work-related skills and social skills. Given that our measure of behavioral regulation is

defined as the manifestation of executive cognitive processing in task-related actions, it is

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surprising that behavioral regulation was not associated with real task behaviors required to

engage and complete classroom works and interactions. Our findings of a lack of relations

between behavioral regulation and classroom skills demonstrates that these two sets of skills

might be distinct and separately developed: Children may learn to focus well on classroom tasks,

to manage deliberate skills learning, and to form social relationships, even if they have low-level

behavioral self-regulatory functioning or executive functioning skills. Future research may

examine specific classroom processes and instructional practices that target behavioral regu-

lation and classroom behaviors in order to disentangle these two sets of skills.

Our findings are in contrast to those from research studies in North America that showed

significant predictability of the HTKS for academic and social skills (Blair & Razza, 2007;

Carlson & Moses, 2001; Howse et al., 2003; McClelland, Cameron, Connor, et al., 2007;

McClelland et al., 2000; Ponitz, McClelland, et al., 2009). As we have previously stated, in a

culture with high expectations for behavioral regulation and management, most Korean pre-

schoolers may have enough experiences to develop their behavioral regulation skills, and thus

the skills may have less variability, not working as a good predictor for school readiness out-

comes. Previous studies using East Asian samples have also reported significant associations

between behavioral regulation and school readiness outcomes (Lan et al., 2011; Wanless,

McClelland, Acock, Chen, et al., 2011; Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Ponitz, et al., 2011).

However, these studies did not include child intelligence as a control variable in the model.

For example, Lan et al. (2011) did not include any control variables other than multiple measures

of subcomponents of executive functioning, and Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Chen, et al. (2011)

and Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Ponitz, et al. (2011) controlled for child age, gender, and parent

education but not child intelligence. We suspect that child intelligence may work as an important

confounding variable, and thus may be critical to consider as a control variable in analyses.

Another interpretation of the present nonsignificant predictability is that the association

between behavioral regulation and school readiness outcome may not be linear; rather, it may

be curvilinear, such that the lack of behavioral regulation skills is linked to low school readiness

as a constraint to the development of school readiness, but a high level of regulation skills may

not do much as a contributing factor. For example, Ready and his colleagues (2005) demon-

strated that having low levels of self-regulation seems to have a greater effect in predicting early

literacy skills than having higher levels of self-regulation. Ceiling effects or skewed distributions

of behavioral regulation measures (i.e., less variability captured for very high skilled children;

Broki & Bohlin, 2004; Carlson, 2005; Hughes, 1998; Wanless, McClelland, Acock, Ponitz,

et al., 2011) may also contribute to the possibility of a curvilinear relationship.

The Role of Gender in Associations Between Behavioral Regulation and SchoolReadiness Outcomes

Our results showed that no gender differences existed in behavioral regulation, and behavioral

regulation did not predict school readiness outcomes. This reveals that gender does not contrib-

ute to behavioral regulation and school outcome associations. This result is in contrast to find-

ings in North America, where gender differences in behavioral regulation tended to play a key

role in predicting school readiness outcome (Matthews et al., 2009). However, the current study

showed that predictability of behavioral regulation in Korean preschoolers was moderated by

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their gender: Boys’ early reading skills tended to vary depending on behavioral regulation,

whereas girls’ early reading skills were not so strongly related to their behavioral regulation

skills.

There may be several reasons for this. First, it may be possible that the learning of reading

skills may require more explicit processing of attention, inhibitory control, and working memory

for boys, who tended to have lower classroom behavior skills than girls. When boys have lower

work-related skills and social skills in the classroom, these children may need higher behavioral

regulation skills in order to achieve higher reading scores. In other words, having behavioral

regulation skills may work as a way to complement low-function classroom skills and lead to

higher achievement in reading (DiPrete & Jennings, 2012). When girls have higher classroom

skills that provide resources and strategies to work with, these children may not be in much need

of cognitive processes in behavioral regulation for reading achievement. This interpretation

seems to align with previous findings that self-regulation was related to reading skills partly

via social skills (Monette et al., 2011). If boys have lower classroom social skills and

work-related skills, then having behavioral regulation skills may work as an alternative route

to higher achievement in reading. Second, previous research indicated that overall classroom

environments tend to be less favorable to boys than to girls because they use a less masculine

way of teaching and learning in preschool (Sax, 2001) as well as in grade school (Beaman,

Wheldall, & Kemp, 2006). Ideal students at school are defined as those who are more behavio-

rally regulated by a high degree of focus, a willingness to engage with the teacher, and an ability

to stay on task, which are seen as female characteristics (Myhill, 2002). In this respect, schooling

tends to be seen as feminine because of a poor fit between the culturally prescribed male gender

role and the student role (Brophy, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 1985). These schooling experiences,

including teacher=parent practices, expectations, and beliefs, may necessitate that boys acquire

higher levels of behavioral regulation skills than girls for school outcomes. Because Korean

preschools are reported to have a rigid organization of curriculum and activities (French & Song,

1998), boys may be more likely than girls to find behavioral regulation skills necessary for

learning at school.

Another inference may involve boys’ relatively lower reading scores than girls’. Previous

research has demonstrated gender gaps favoring females in reading, which suggests that boys

may need additional skills or resources for their reading achievement (Robinson & Lubienski,

2011). Korean preschool boys also tended to have lower early reading scores than girls, and

these boys may need behavioral regulation skills to achieve higher reading scores. Behavioral

regulation might be a contributor to children’s outcome when the outcome skill levels are rela-

tively low (i.e., boys’ scores) but might not contribute much when the skill levels are relatively

high (i.e., girls’ scores). Thus, boys with relatively low reading skills can benefit more from hav-

ing behavioral regulation skills compared to girls with relatively higher reading skills. Finally,

boys had more variability in early reading scores than girls. This may lead us to find stronger

predictability for boys.

Implications and Limitations of the Study

Overall, the results demonstrate that Korean preschoolers’ behavioral regulation as measured

with the HTKS is not a strong unique predictor of school readiness but represents an

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important developmental aspect predicting early reading skills for boys. The results suggest

that behavioral regulation and gender might work together as sources of developmental gaps

in school outcomes in Korean preschoolers. Boys seem to benefit more from having beha-

vioral regulation than girls, and early educators need to support the development of both

behavioral self-regulation and classroom behaviors as separate sets of skills, especially for

boys.

Our preliminary analysis of the intraclass correlation showed that greater variance in

children’s classroom behaviors compared to preacademic skills or behavioral regulation is

attributed to individuals (e.g., children and their families) rather than to classrooms. Given

that preacademic skills may be more likely to be an explicit instruction focus in Korean pre-

school classrooms, this is not surprising. However, it suggests that preschools may need to

provide more explicit supports for classroom behaviors as part of their curriculum. This posits

an interesting hypothesis that teacher=class may make a stronger contribution to behavioral regu-

lation and academic skills than classroom behaviors in Korean preschools. Future studies may

investigate predictors of behavioral regulation and classroom behaviors of children.

In regard to potential curvilinear associations between behavioral regulation and school readi-

ness outcomes, the policy and education fields may need to focus on the lack of behavioral

regulation skills as an important constraining factor and use intervention programs for the devel-

opment of at-risk children’s behavioral regulation skills rather than general programs targeting

the behavioral development of all children. This could be a more cost-effective way of investing

in school readiness for children who need the most support.

The results of study can be cited as evidence of the importance of behavioral regulation

skills in early childhood outside of North America. The results suggest that the contribution

of behavioral regulation to school readiness is not a simple relationship with the role of gen-

der. Clinicians and educators may need to consider the importance of behavioral

self-regulation and develop programs and curriculums to support its development as one

of their priorities in efforts to strengthen school readiness, especially for boys (e.g.,

Rimm-Kaufman & Chiu, 2007). In addition, teachers may need to consider appropriate types

of interactions and feedback to stimulate classroom behavioral regulation targeting boys

(Beaman et al., 2006).

Although the present study extends the field by focusing on behavioral regulation devel-

opment in an East Asian country, future research needs to consider examining multiple coun-

tries in East Asian cultures and directly comparing among and across Eastern and Western

cultures. Making simple generalizations of the Korean findings of the current study to other

East Asian countries may be hasty. Studying multiple countries or making a cross-cultural

comparison of the nature and the impact of the behavioral regulation development of pre-

school children will show the general or culture-specific importance of behavioral regulation

for school readiness outcomes. Another limitation of our study concerns the use of teacher

report for the measurement of classroom behaviors. This teacher-report measure may have

reflected teachers’ gendered beliefs of different expectations for boys’ versus girls’ behavior,

and teachers might use a different metric to rate boys’ and girls’ behavior. Accordingly, the

measure may have biased the estimation of gender effects by canceling or exaggerating its

predictability. Future research may adopt multiple assessment tools with differential methods

for behavioral regulation as well as classroom behaviors (e.g., classroom or playground

observation of children’s behaviors) to parcel out the effects of gender and gendered beliefs.

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Taken together, the current results confirm the importance of having behavioral

regulation skills for the early reading of Korean preschool boys. Supporting young children

to manage their behaviors appropriately will lead to improved school readiness and learning,

especially when this effort is based on a more detailed analysis of the importance of behavioral

regulation for children with different characteristics (e.g., gender, level of social skills or cogni-

tive skills) and targets the children who can benefit the most from the support.

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