The present study explored whether competence beliefs and intrinsic motivation for different school domains show reciprocal effects over time. A sample of 670 German elementary school pupils (M= 8.8 years, SD= 0.51) was followed over 1 year. At 4 measurement occasions, children completed self-reports on their intrinsic motivation and competence…

The cultural capital in families, more specifically, the educational level of parents, has during the last decades been shown to be the most important dimension of socioeconomic influence on school performance in many countries. Less is known about the factors that actually mediate this influence. The aim, therefore, is to investigate the relative…

In this study, two longitudinal models of early adolescent risky sexual behaviors (RSB) were compared using a pooled sample of 267 Canadian and Italian adolescents (55% females; 53% Canadians) assessed yearly from grade 8 to 10. We focused on parenting practices (monitoring, control, limit setting), adolescent problem behaviors (antisocial…

This study examined changes in the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on reading achievement at individual and school levels between 1991 and 2001. Data from 9 countries that participated in both the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Reading Literacy Study 1991 and the Trend Study in the Progress in…

Data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation study were used to examine the extent to which several factors mediate between- and within-ethnic-group differences in parenting beliefs and behaviors, and children's early cognitive development (analysis sample of 1198 families). The findings indicate that Hispanic-, European-, and…

Outlines a method for comparing completely standardized solutions in multiple groups. The method is based on a correlation structure analysis of equal-size samples and uses the correlation distribution theory implemented in the structural equation modeling program RAMONA. (SLD)

Univariate latent growth modeling (LGM) of composites of multiple items (e.g., item means or sums) has been frequently used to analyze the growth of latent constructs. This study evaluated whether LGM of composites yields unbiased parameter estimates, standard errors, chi-square statistics, and adequate fit indexes. Furthermore, LGM was compared…

The purpose of this study was to construct a profile of K-12 music teachers in the United States and develop a model to predict their retention, turnover, and attrition. Responses to the "Schools and Staffing Survey" from 47,857 K-12 public and private school teachers, including 1,903 music teachers, were analyzed using comparative…

An alternative baseline model for comparative fit assessment of structural equation models is described, evaluated, and compared to the standard "null" baseline model. The new "equal correlation" model constrains all variables to have equal, rather than zero, correlations, but all variances are free. Advantages and limitations…

Discusses concerns with the model proposed by E. Rigdon for computing incremental fit indices in which all measured variables are equally correlated (as opposed to the traditional null model). Proposes retaining the traditional null model with emphasis on the comparative fit of alternative models within a nested sequence that could include the new…

Proposed a new nonlinear structural equation model with fixed covariates to deal with some complicated substantive theory and developed a Bayesian path sampling procedure for model comparison. Illustrated the approach with an illustrative example using data from an international study. (SLD)

This article examines students from ethnic minorities and majorities with regard to the relationships between their social and academic integration and their quality of learning. A total of 523 students at four universities completed a questionnaire: analyses of variance were used to examine mean differences, and structural equation modelling…

Although SAS PROC CALIS is not designed to perform multigroup comparisons, it is believed that SAS can be "tricked" into doing so for groups of equal size. At present, there are no comprehensive examples of the steps involved in performing a multigroup comparison in SAS. The purpose of this article is to illustrate these steps. We demonstrate…

Using data from the first 2 phases of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, the authors examine the links between maternal employment in the first 12 months of life and cognitive, social, and emotional outcomes for children at age 3, at age 4.5, and in first grade. Drawing on theory and prior research from developmental psychology as well as…

This paper, in a fashion easy to follow, illustrates the interesting relationship between structural equation modeling and canonical correlation analysis. Although computationally somewhat inconvenient, representing canonical correlation as a structural equation model may provide some information which is not available from conventional canonical…