ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Natural Window of Opportunity? Low-Income Parents&apos; Responses to Their Children&apos;s Impending Kindergarten Entry
Author: Weiland, Christina
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Low Income Students,Parent Attitudes,Kindergarten,Young Children,School Readiness,Parent Participation,Parent Child Relationship,Learning Activities,Parents as Teachers

Parental investments in the activities and materials that drive learning are central to young children's school readiness and life success. Little is known, however, about how parents adjust these investments in response to outside pressures, including their children's impending entry into kindergarten. In the present study, we employ two analytical strategies (multilevel residualized change and regression discontinuity) within national data from the Head Start Impact Study to examine whether parents of children facing an impending entry to kindergarten invest more time and materials in their children's language and literacy skill development compared with parents of otherwise similar children who are not yet facing formal school entry. Results suggest that low-income parents react to the impending kindergarten transition by increasing their provision of parent-child language and literacy activities (d = 0.15) but not related materials. We discuss the implications of our findings for the timing of parenting interventions.
Social Cognitive Constructs Are Just as Stable as the Big Five between Grades 5 and 8
Author: Rieger, Sven
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Social Cognition,Personality Traits,Foreign Countries,Grade 5,Grade 6,Grade 7,Grade 8,Individual Differences,Longitudinal Studies,Self Concept,Student Interests,Mathematics,English (Second Language),German,Secondary School Students

Personality traits and social cognitive variables are central constructs in psychological research. It is often assumed that personality traits are less changeable than social cognitive variables, and thus interventions usually tend to focus on the latter. However, these assumptions about the mutability of personality and social cognitive variables have never been tested side-by-side in a longitudinal study. Using a large longitudinal study with four time points and N = 3,876 students in 136 classes (99 schools), we compared the mutability of the Big Five personality traits and social cognitive constructs more often described as socioemotional skills or motivational variables (individual interest, self-concept, and academic effort in the school subjects math, English, and German). The results indicated that there are no marked differences between personality traits and social cognitive constructs across multiple indicators of stability or changeability.
Understanding Loan Aversion in Education: Evidence from High School Seniors, Community College Students, and Adults
Author: Boatman, Angela
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Loan Programs,Student Financial Aid,Resistance (Psychology),High School Seniors,Community Colleges,Two Year College Students,Incidence,Gender Differences,Racial Differences,Hispanic American Students,White Students,College Bound Students,Comparative Analysis,Adults,Debt (Financial),Cultural Differences,Decision Making,Paying for College,Economic Factors,African American Students,Asian American Students,Tuition

Although prior research has suggested that some students may be averse to taking out loans to finance their college education, there is little empirical evidence showing the extent to which loan aversion exists or how it affects different populations of students. This study provides the first large-scale quantitative evidence of levels of loan aversion in the United States. Using survey data collected on more than 6,000 individuals, we examine the frequency of loan aversion in three distinct populations. Depending on the measure, between 20 and 40% of high school seniors exhibit loan aversion with lower rates among community college students and adults not in college. Women are less likely to express loan-averse attitudes than men, and Hispanic respondents are more likely to be loan averse than White respondents.
Longitudinal Effects of Teacher Use of a Computer Data System on Student Achievement
Author: Wayman, Jeffrey C.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Data,Longitudinal Studies,Academic Achievement,Decision Making,Intervention,Models,Elementary School Students,Elementary School Teachers,Junior High School Students,Secondary School Teachers,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement,Computer Uses in Education,Information Systems

Does data use make a difference in student achievement? Despite the field's optimism on this matter, relatively few studies have attempted to quantify the effects of data use. These studies have often used the presence of a data use intervention (e.g., a data system or data coaching) as a proxy for use, as opposed to tracking teachers' direct interactions with data, via data system click logs, for example. Accordingly, the present study sought to address this methodological gap by exploring the 2-year effects of data use through a multilevel cross-classified model of teachers' system interactions and student achievement. A significant relationship was found between system use and elementary reading, but no significant relationships were found for elementary math, junior high math, or junior high reading. The implications of this study on how to conceptualize and measure use, as well as how to support practitioners, are discussed.
A Temperament for Teaching? Associations between Personality Traits and Beginning Teacher Performance and Retention
Author: Bastian, Kevin C.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Personality,Personality Traits,Beginning Teachers,Teacher Persistence,Public School Teachers,Teacher Effectiveness,Correlation,Teacher Evaluation,Outcome Measures,Value Added Models,Teacher Characteristics

The &quot;greening&quot; (i.e., inexperience) of the U.S. teacher workforce puts a premium on districts and schools hiring effective and persistent beginning teachers. Given the limitations of characteristics currently available at the time of hiring (e.g., academic ability, preparation type), we built off previous research in economics and psychology to investigate associations between personality traits and first-year teachers' performance and retention in North Carolina public schools. Using the 5-factor model of personality, we find that conscientiousness is significantly associated with higher value-added estimates, higher evaluation ratings, and higher retention rates. Additionally, general self-efficacy, a subdomain of conscientiousness, is significantly associated with teacher value added and evaluation ratings. These conscientiousness results are consistent with a rich body of evidence connecting conscientiousness-related measures to employee performance and retention across professions, and they suggest that districts and schools should consider using personality trait measures, along with other valid indicators, as a way to improve teacher hiring decisions.
Lower Performance Evaluation Practice Ratings for Teachers of Disadvantaged Students: Bias or Reflection of Reality?
Author: Milanowski, Anthony
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Teacher Evaluation,Disadvantaged Youth,Low Achievement,Teacher Effectiveness,Evaluators,Bias,Scoring Rubrics,Teaching Skills,Teaching Conditions,Teacher Attitudes

Value-added estimates of teachers' contributions to student achievement have been criticized for bias relating to the sorting of students to classrooms. More recently, research has raised the possibility that sorting leads to differences in practice evaluation ratings between teachers of more or less disadvantaged and/or higher- and lower-achieving students. Adjusting observation ratings for the relevant characteristics of teachers' classrooms has been proposed as a remedy, analogous to how value-added teacher effectiveness estimates are developed. However, the appropriateness of adjustment depends on the cause of observed differences in average ratings and the use of the ratings. Potential causes include rater bias rubric deficiency, differences in teacher skills and beliefs, and true differences in difficulty of teaching groups of students. The appropriateness of adjustment given these causes and typical uses of the ratings is discussed as well as research needed to identify the influence of the causes.
Teacher Math Anxiety Relates to Adolescent Students&apos; Math Achievement
Author: Ramirez, Gerardo
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mathematics Anxiety,Mathematics Instruction,Adolescents,Mathematics Achievement,Public Schools,Grade 9,Mathematics Teachers,Teaching Methods,Teacher Attitudes,Student Attitudes,Teacher Student Relationship,Predictor Variables,Grade Point Average

Elementary school teachers' math anxiety has been found to play a role in their students' math achievement. The current study addresses the role of teacher math anxiety on ninth-grade students' math achievement and the mediating factors underlying this relationship. Using data from the National Mindset Study, we find that higher teacher math anxiety is associated with lower math achievement. This relationship is partially mediated by the students' perception that their teacher believes not everyone can be good at math and is not explainable by teachers' usable knowledge to teach mathematics. In subsequent analyses, we find that higher teacher math anxiety relates to a reduction in process-oriented (as opposed to ability-oriented) teaching practices, which in turn predict students' perception of teacher mindset. We argue that math anxious teachers and their use of particular teaching strategies have the potential to shape students' math achievement and their perceptions of what their teacher believes about math.
The Gap within the Gap: Using Longitudinal Data to Understand Income Differences in Educational Outcomes
Author: Michelmore, Katherine
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Achievement Gap,Longitudinal Studies,Outcomes of Education,Grade 8,Public Schools,Poverty,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Lunch Programs,Disadvantaged Youth,Low Income Students,Economically Disadvantaged,Eligibility,Surveys

Gaps in educational achievement between high- and low-income children are growing. Administrative data sets maintained by states and districts lack information about income but do indicate whether a student is eligible for subsidized school meals. We leverage the longitudinal structure of these data sets to develop a new measure of economic disadvantage. Half of eighth graders in Michigan are eligible for a subsidized meal, but just 14% have been eligible for subsidized meals in every grade since kindergarten. These children score 0.94 standard deviations below those who are never eligible for meal subsidies and 0.23 below those who are occasionally eligible. There is a negative, linear relationship between grades spent in economic disadvantage and eighth-grade test scores. This is not an exposure effect; the relationship is almost identical in third-grade, before children have been exposed to varying years of economic disadvantage. Survey data show that the number of years that a child will spend eligible for subsidized lunch is negatively correlated with her or his current household income. Years eligible for subsidized meals can therefore be used as a reasonable proxy for income. Our proposed measure can be used to estimate heterogeneous effects in program evaluations, to improve value-added calculations, and to better target resources.
Classroom Age Composition and Preschoolers&apos; School Readiness: The Implications of Classroom Quality and Teacher Qualifications
Author: Purtell, Kelly M.
Date: 2018-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: School Entrance Age,School Readiness,Preschool Children,Educational Quality,Teacher Qualifications,Children,Early Intervention,Experience,Family (Sociological Unit),Preschool Education,Age Differences,Academic Ability,Mixed Age Grouping,Educational Attainment,Teacher Characteristics,Academic Achievement,Student Characteristics,Teaching Experience

Recent research has shown that the age composition of preschool classrooms influences children's early learning. Building on prior research, this study examines whether the association between classroom age composition and children's learning and development vary based on classroom quality and teacher characteristics using a subset of the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), a nationally representative sample of 3- and 4-year-old children attending Head Start (n = 2,829). Results revealed that the association between age composition and children's academic skills was dependent on classroom quality and that classroom quality was less predictive of children's skills in mixed-age classrooms. Teacher education but not experience also moderated the influence of age composition such that mixed-age classrooms taught by a teacher with higher education were not associated with decreased literacy gains among older children.
Measuring Student Learning in Technical Programs: A Case Study from Colombia
Author: Domingue, Benjamin W.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Foreign Countries,Vocational Schools,Test Bias,Item Response Theory,Critical Thinking,Thinking Skills,Comparative Analysis,Models,Scores,Community Colleges,Two Year College Students

Technical schools are an integral part of the education system, and yet, little is known about student learning at such institutions. We consider whether assessments of student learning can be jointly administered to both university and technical school students. We examine whether differential test functioning may bias inferences regarding the relative performance of students in quantitative reasoning and critical reading. We apply item response theory models that allow for differences in response behavior as a function of school context. Items show small yet consistent differential functioning in favor of university students, especially for the quantitative reasoning test. These differences are shown to affect inferences regarding effect size differences between the university and technical students (effect sizes can fall by 44% in quantitative reasoning and 24% in critical reading). Differential test functioning influences the rank orderings of institutions by up to roughly 5 percentile points on average.
Family Support of Third-Grade Reading Skills, Motivation, and Habits
Author: Capotosto, Lauren
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Family Programs,Grade 3,Reading Skills,Emergent Literacy,Reading Motivation,Reading Habits,Summer Programs,Reading Programs,Reading Comprehension,Elementary School Students,Low Income Groups,Control Groups

This qualitative study investigated the ways in which 84 parents from predominantly low-income communities described supporting their third graders' reading skills, motivation, and habits. Thematic analysis of open-ended parent interviews indicated that parents actively and deliberately scaffolded their children's progress toward developing independent reading skills. Parents explicitly communicated the value of reading in everyday conversations; actively listened to their children read, even if they did not understand the language in which the text was written; asked reading comprehension questions; created a home environment conducive to sustained reading; promoted reader autonomy through encouragement of strategy use; and incorporated reading practices into daily routines. Parents often described their own efforts as responsive to their children's level of reading motivation and reading performance, thus highlighting the reciprocal nature of parent--child reading interactions. Findings reveal a variety of ways in which families support their children's reading skills, motivation, and habits.
Achievement Goal Task Framing and Fit with Personal Goals Modulate the Neurocognitive Response to Corrective Feedback
Author: Mangels, Jennifer A.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Goal Orientation,Feedback (Response),Error Correction,Cognitive Measurement,Learning Processes,Undergraduate Students,Attention,Accuracy

Past studies have demonstrated the educational impact of achievement goals, but have not yet captured their effects at a critical learning moment--students' response to negative feedback and their subsequent engagement with error remediation opportunities. We used event-related potentials to investigate how neural substrates of feedback processing were influenced by a within-subjects manipulation of mastery and performance goals. Task goal framing did not affect event-related potentials to performance feedback, but did modulate neural activity predicting successful learning. Under a mastery frame, successful learning modulated fronto-temporal activity linked with semantic processing; under a performance frame, it modulated parieto-occipital activity linked with perceptual processing. A match (&quot;fit&quot;) between task and personal goals intensified these neural differences under both goal frames, but mastery goals were additionally sensitive to goal presentation order. Mastery goals may motivate better learning strategies, but are more vulnerable to modulation by students' own goal dispositions and prior experiences.
Measuring Collaborative Problem Solving Using Mathematics-Based Tasks
Author: Harding, Susan-Marie E.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Mathematics Instruction,Problem Solving,Cooperative Learning,Secondary School Mathematics,Secondary School Students,Foreign Countries,Cultural Differences,Mathematical Concepts,Concept Formation,Algebra,Educational Technology,Technology Uses in Education,Educational Games

This study describes an online method of measuring individual students' collaborative problem-solving abilities using four interactive mathematics-based tasks, with students working in pairs. Process stream data were captured from 3,000 students who completed the tasks in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Singapore, and Finland. The data were transformed into indicators of collaborative problem-solving ability and were analyzed using item response modeling. The assessments employed in this study can be used as a teaching tool for introduction to algebraic concepts and as a measurement instrument for collaborative problem-solving ability. The paper describes the construction, calibration, and reliability of the tasks and considers validation issues, such as fairness between assessments for both partners and avoidance of cultural biases. Investigations into the dependencies between student scores provide evidence for convergent and discriminant validity.
Associations between Emotional Engagement with School and Behavioral and Psychological Outcomes across Adolescence
Author: Markowitz, Anna J.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: National Surveys,Longitudinal Studies,Correlation,Adolescents,Psychological Patterns,Emotional Response,Adolescent Attitudes,Learner Engagement,Depression (Psychology),Self Esteem,Outcomes of Education,Behavior Problems

Although a small body of research suggests that emotional engagement with school is related to youth behavioral and psychological outcomes, it remains unclear whether these associations represent causal relationships and at what age engagement matters most for student outcomes. Using data from two large, national surveys, this study uses three analytic strategies to reduce threats to causal inference and assess whether the central relationship changes as youth age. Results across both data sets are consistent with a causal relationship between emotional engagement with school and youth behavioral and psychological outcomes that decreases somewhat as youth age. Given the importance of emotional engagement for these outcomes, and the importance of avoiding problem behaviors and maintaining healthy psychological functioning for students' long-run outcomes, research should continue to explore the ways in which schools and educational policy can influence students' engagement.
STEM Pathways: Do Men and Women Differ in Why They Enter and Exit?
Author: Maltese, Adam V.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: STEM Education,Gender Differences,Student Interests,Career Choice,Experience,Influences,College Students,Majors (Students),Elementary Secondary Education,Higher Education

To remedy the disparity between sexes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, it is important to understand the factors critical to initiating and maintaining STEM interest. To this end, we created and administered a survey to almost 8,000 individuals in and outside of STEM fields. Our results shed light on the various factors that are critical for sparking STEM interest and persisting in STEM fields for each sex as well as the differences in movement in and out of STEM pathways for each. These results reveal that although there is no singular pathway into STEM fields, self-driven interest is a large factor in persistence, especially for males, and females rely more heavily on support from others.
Is Common Core &quot;Working&quot;? And Where Does Common Core Research Go from Here?
Author: Polikoff, Morgan S.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Common Core State Standards,Program Effectiveness,Educational Research,Academic Standards,Outcomes of Education,Evidence,Program Implementation

Five years into the Common Core initiative, researchers and the general public are interested to know whether and how the standards are &quot;working.&quot; In this introduction to the special topic, I discuss the state of the literature on these questions and offer suggestions for what I view as the most important work moving forward.
Public School Choice and Student Achievement: Evidence from Michigan&apos;s Interdistrict Open Enrollment System
Author: Cowen, Joshua M.
Date: 2017-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Public Schools,School Choice,Open Enrollment,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement,Minority Group Students,Low Income Students,Gender Differences,Disproportionate Representation,Program Effectiveness

In this article, we focus on a statewide system of interdistrict open enrollment in Michigan, known as Schools of Choice. Our previous work indicated that students who take advantage of this program are disproportionately lower performing on state exams, come from lower-income families, and are more likely to be minority students. We estimated conditional bounds on these factors, as well as within-student variation in test scores, for the effect of participation in Schools of Choice, and find little evidence that student achievement is affected overall. We find little consistent evidence that subgroups of students based on race, gender or income benefit or lose disproportionately from the program, nor do students whose resident districts vary on key demographic or achievement characteristics.