Recent work on measuring growth with categorical outcome variables has combined the item response theory (IRT) measurement model with the latent growth curve (LGC) model (e.g., McArdle, 1988) and extended the assessment of growth to multidimensional IRT models (e.g., Hsieh, von Eye, & Maier, 2010; Huang, 2013) and higher-order IRT models…

Research findings: Using a sample of 568 students from 61 kindergarten classrooms whose primary caregivers completed a questionnaire describing their child's early childhood education and care (ECEC) by year from birth to pre-kindergarten, we identified seven pathways characterizing children's ECEC experiences using a latent class analysis. Once…

Prior research shows that short-term effects from preschool may disappear, but little research has considered which environmental conditions might sustain academic advantages from preschool into elementary school. Using secondary data from two preschool experiments, we investigate whether features of elementary schools, particularly advanced…