Public Pre-K-12 Education

Active Projects

The Tulsa SEED Study

Funding:

  • The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 2023-2028

  • The National Institutes of Health (NIH), 2018-2023, $2,700,000

  • The Spencer Foundation, 2017-2021, $1,000,000

  • The George Kaiser Family Foundation, the University Strategic Organization Initiative at the University of Oklahoma, the Foundation for Child Development, 2017-2020, $225,0000

  • The Heising-Simons Foundation, 2016-2020, $1.1 million

The Tulsa SEED (School Experiences and Early Development) Study is among the nation’s most comprehensive evaluations of public pre-kindergarten. Tulsa SEED is following a sample of low-income children in publicly-funded pre-k in Tulsa, OK, beginning when children were 3-years-old (2016) through 9th grade (2028). The study aims to understand the effects of pre-k – administered in a mix of public and charter school-based pre-k classrooms and Head Start and Educare classrooms – on children’s self-regulatory, education, and health outcomes. To accomplish this goal, Tulsa SEED collects comprehensive data, including direct assessments of children’s skills in the fall and spring of each year, teacher and observer reports of child behavior, surveys of children’s parents and teachers, in-depth classroom observations of teacher-child and peer-to-peer interactions, and program and state administrative data on items such as attendance, grade retention, IEP status, test scores, and child health. More recently, the SEED Study Team has also begun to investigate questions about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted children, families, and educators.

Selected Publications

Hover over an abstract to view the citation or click to open the publication in your web browser.

Wright, A. W., Martin, A., Johnson, A. D., & the Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2024). Start Earlier, Stay Healthier? An Earlier Start to Public Preschool May Improve Detection of Health Problems. Child & Youth Care Forum. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-024-09822-8

Johnson, A. D., Partika, A., Martin, A., Castle, S., Phillips, D. A., and the Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2024). Much hypothesized, rarely tested: Public preschool attendance predicts executive functioning skills in 3rd grade. Applied Developmental Science, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2024.2345365

Johnson, A.D., Partika, A., Martin, A., Lyons, I., Castle, S., Phillips, D.A., and the Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2024). Public preschool predicts stronger third-grade academic skills. AERA Open, 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231223477

Johnson, A. D., Partika, A., Martin, A., Horm, D., Phillips, D. A., & the Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2023). A deeper dive, a wider pool: Preschool benefits sustain to first grade on a broader set of outcomes. Child Development, 94, 1298–1318. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13928

Johnson, A. D., Schochet, O. N., Martin, A., Castle, S., Horm, D., Phillips, D. A., & The Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2022). When does 1 + 1 not equal 2? The relative advantage of public school-based pre-k versus Head Start for low-income children’s kindergarten cognitive and self-regulatory skills. Developmental Psychology, 58(5), 848–865. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001335

Johnson, A. D., Schochet, O. N., Castle, S., Horm, D., & Phillips, D. A. (2022). Predictors of First-Grade Teachers’ Teaching-Related Time During COVID-19. AERA Open, 8. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584211067798

Johnson, A. D., Phillips, D. A., Schochet, O. N., Martin, A., & Castle, S. (2021). To Whom Little Is Given, Much Is Expected: ECE Teacher Stressors and Supports as Determinants of Classroom Quality. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 54, 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.07.002

Partika, A., Johnson, A. D., Martin, A., Castle, S., & The Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2021). Hispanic English language learner families and food insecurity during COVID-19: Risk factors and systems of food support. Families, Systems, & Health. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fsh0000644

Johnson, A. D., Phillips, D. A., Partika, A., The Tulsa SEED Study Team, & Castle, S. (2020). Everyday Heroes: The Personal and Economic Stressors of Early Care and Education Teachers Serving Low-Income Children. Early Education and Development, 31(7), 973–993. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2020.1785266

Martin, A., Wright, A., Phillips, D. A., Castle, S., Johnson, A. D., and the Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2024). Exploring the features of the self-regulatory environment in kindergarten classrooms. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2024.101659

Martin, A., Partika, A., Castle, S., Horm, D., & Johnson, A. D. (2022). Both sides of the screen: Predictors of parents’ and teachers’ depression and food insecurity during COVID-19-related distance learning. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 60, 237–249. https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1elJi39HNKeHWN

Phillips, D. A., Hutchison, J., Martin, A., Castle, S., & Johnson, A. D. (2022). First do no harm: How teachers support or undermine children’s self-regulation. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 59, 172–185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2021.12.001

Partika, A., Johnson, A. D., Phillips, D. A., Luk, G., & Dericks, A. (2021). Dual language supports for dual language learners? Exploring preschool classroom instructional supports for DLLs’ early learning outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 56, 124–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2021.03.011

Johnson, A. D., Martin, A., Partika, A., Phillips, D. A., Castle, S., & The Tulsa SEED Study Team. (2021). Chaos during the COVID-19 outbreak: Predictors of household chaos among low-income families during a pandemic. Family Relations. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12597

Martin, A., Johnson, A. D., & Castle, S. (2020). Reframing High-Quality Public Preschool as a Vehicle for Narrowing Child Health Disparities Based on Family Income. Academic Pediatrics, 21(3), 408–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2020.07.004

Past Projects

Child Care Subsidies:
Links to ECE Quality and Child Outcomes

Funding:

  • NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

  • Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS), Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)

The federal child care subsidy program costs nearly as much and serves almost as many children as the federal Head Start and state public pre-k programs combined. In Professor Johnson’s work, she has examined how access to child care subsidies – which are only available to low-income working parents – differ across eligible recipients and non-recipients, as well as how use of a subsidy may increase the quality of care children experience and enhance children’s development in kindergarten and through 3rd grade. Along with her students, she has also examined how child care subsidies increase low-income mothers’ education outcomes and how quality features differ across subsidized versus unsubsidized and other publicly-funded settings that serve low-income children, like Head Start and pre-k.