Current practices for growth mixture modeling emphasize the importance of the proper parameterization and number of classes, but the impact of these decisions on latent class composition and the substantive implications has not been thoroughly addressed. Using measures of behavior from 575 middle school students, we compared the results of several…

A proposed avenue for increasing students' vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension is instruction that promotes students' enthusiasm and attention to words, referred to as "word consciousness". This study seeks to investigate, at the utterance level, whether and how word consciousness talk is used in classrooms with young word…

This study compared five common multilevel software packages via Monte Carlo simulation: HLM 7, M"plus" 7.4, R (lme4 V1.1-12), Stata 14.1, and SAS 9.4 to determine how the programs differ in estimation accuracy and speed, as well as convergence, when modeling multiple randomly varying slopes of different magnitudes. Simulated data…

Although the relationships between family income and student identification for gifted programming are well documented, less is known about how school and district wealth are related to student identification. To examine the effects of institutional and individual poverty on student identification, we conducted a series of three-level regression…

Although the relationships between family income and student identification for gifted programming are well documented, less is known about how school and district wealth are related to student identification. To examine the effects of institutional and individual poverty on student identification, we conducted a series of three-level regression…

Much is unknown about how initially high-achieving students grow academically, especially given the measurement issues inherent in assessing growth for the highest performing students. This study compared initially high-achieving and average students' growth in reading (in a cohort of third-grade students from 2,000 schools) over 3 years.…

Recent federal investments in early childhood assessment systems are the result of a national need for developmentally appropriate, psychometrically sound instruments to monitor young children and evaluate the effectiveness of their learning programs. In this paper, we examined the association between teachers' perceptions of their students at the…

Reading instruction often does not focus on appealing to student interests, offering choice, or responding to the needs of advanced readers. In this experimental study, we examined the effects on achievement of an instructional approach involving choice, differentiated instruction, and extensive, supported, independent reading, with corresponding…

This Methodological Brief gives an overview of statistical methods used to gauge academic growth and discusses issues surrounding the measurement of growth in gifted populations. To illustrate some of these issues, we describe a growth model that examines differences in summer lag between gifted and nongifted students. We also provide…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether relationships existed between teachers' implementation of two specific discourse-related instructional practices and students' mathematics achievement in geometry and measurement as part of a research study on the effectiveness of an advanced mathematics curriculum for kindergarten and…

Despite the potential of differentiated curricula to enhance learning, limited research exists that documents their impact on Grade 3 students of all ability levels. To determine if there was a difference in achievement between students involved in 16 weeks of predifferentiated, enriched mathematics curricula and students using their district's…