Many national and international educational data collection programs offer researchers opportunities to investigate contextual effects related to student performance. In those programs, schools are often used in the first-stage sampling process and students are randomly drawn from selected schools. However, the "incidental" dependence of…

This study proposes a new model, termed the multiple membership piecewise growth model (MM-PGM), to handle individual mobility across clusters frequently encountered in longitudinal studies, especially in educational research wherein some students could attend multiple schools during the course of the study. A real data set containing some…

School-average achievement is often reported to have positive effects on individual achievement (peer spillover effect). However, it is well established that school-average achievement has negative effects on academic self-concept (big-fish-little-pond effect [BFLPE]) and that academic self-concept and achievement are positively correlated and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school-based kindergarten transition practices and student achievement and executive functioning using recent, nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11. The analysis employed 3-level hierarchical linear models and…

Research Findings: The current study analyzed the relation between the amount of mathematical input that preschool children hear (i.e., math talk) from their mothers in their homes and their early math ability a year later. Forty mother-child dyads recorded their naturalistic exchanges in their homes using an enhanced audio-recording device (the…

This study used ECLS-K 1998-1999 data to evaluate whether specific kindergarten teaching practices predicted school-year learning gains differently, depending on children's ethnicity, SES, and fall test scores. Exploratory factor analyses guided the creation of four literacy and five math instruction composites from teachers' reports of their…

Background/Context: Chronic school absenteeism is a pervasive problem across the US; in early education, it is most rampant in kindergarten and its consequences are particularly detrimental, often leading to poorer academic, behavioral and developmental outcomes later in life. Though prior empirical research has identified a broad range of…

There is a lack of knowledge regarding reading development and predictors of reading development for Language Minority students (LMs) such as Asians. In particular, the research base is limited regarding the effectiveness of different reading instructional emphases for Asian LMs. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether language…

Policymakers view parental involvement (PI) as a crucial component of school reform efforts, but evidence of its effect on student achievement is equivocal. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort dataset, we examined the long-term impact on student- and school-level achievement of three types of school-based PI: PI to…

This study employed the concept of teachers' sense of responsibility for students' learning to examine the extent to which the gap in math learning growth is reduced and whether such attitudes can improve children's learning outcomes to a degree that is above and beyond their expected achievement relative to their initial academic skills. Analysis…

This study examined the effectiveness of a classroom teacher intervention, the Targeted Reading Intervention (TRI), in helping struggling readers in kindergarten and first grade. This intervention used biweekly literacy coaching in the general education classroom to help classroom teachers use diagnostic strategies with struggling readers in…