Human Development & Quantitative Methodology
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2248
The departments within the College of Education were reorganized and renamed as of July 1, 2011. This department incorporates the former departments of Measurement, Statistics & Evaluation; Human Development; and the Institute for Child Study.
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Item ACCOUNTING FOR STUDENT MOBILITY IN SCHOOL RANKINGS: A COMPARISON OF ESTIMATES FROM VALUE-ADDED AND MULTIPLE MEMBERSHIP MODELS(2023) Cassiday, Kristina; Stapleton, Laura M; Measurement, Statistics and Evaluation; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Student mobility exists, but it’s not always taken into account in value-added modeling approaches used to determine school accountability rankings. Multiple membership modeling can account for student mobility in a multilevel framework, but it is more computationally demanding and requires specialized knowledge and software packages that may not be available in state and district departments of education. The purpose of this dissertation was to compare how different multilevel value-added modeling approaches perform at various levels of mobility to be able to provide recommendations to state- and district-administrators about the type of models that would be best suited to their data. To accomplish this task, a simulation study was conducted, manipulating the percentage of mobility in the dataset and the similarity of the sender and receiver schools of mobile students. Traditional gains score and covariate adjustment models were run, along with comparable multiple membership models to determine the extent to which school effect estimates and school accountability rankings were affected and to investigate the conditions under which a multiple membership model would produce a meaningful increase in accuracy to justify its computational demand. Additional comparisons were made on measures of relative bias of the fixed effect coefficients, the random effect variance components, and the relative bias of the standard errors of the fixed effects and random effects variance components. The multiple membership models with schools proportionally weighted by time spent were considered better fitting models across all conditions. All multiple membership models were able to better recover the intercept and school-level residual variance better than other models. However, when considering school accountability rankings, the proportion of school quintile shifts was close to equal across the traditional and multiple membership models that were structurally similar to each other. This finding suggests that the use of a multiple membership model is preferable in providing the most accurate parameter and standard error estimates. However, if school accountability rankings are of primary interest, a traditional VAM performs equally as well as a multiple membership model. An empirical data analysis was conducted to demonstrate how to prepare data and properly run these various models and how to interpret the results, along with a discussion of issues to consider when selecting a model. Recommendations are provided on how to select a model, informed by the findings from the simulation portion of the study.Item Knowing to Ask and Asking to Know: The Reciprocal Nature of Inquiry and Selectivity(2021) Gibbs, Hailey Margaret; Butler, Lucas P.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Children are resourceful learners, capable of learning about the world both through hands-on experience and by engaging with other members of their communities. Questions play a particularly central role in children’s early learning, allowing them targeted, direct access to what others know. In this study, children aged 4-7 were presented with animations of puppet characters playing a Question Game in which one character reliably asks more efficient questions than the other. In three generalization trials, children were asked to extend their judgments of the characters’ questioning abilities to determine which character would be more reliable, which would be a better teacher, and which would be a more competent problem-solver. Children as young as 4 were able to identify the more efficient questioner and could generate their own overall assessment of a character’s questioning ability given previous experience with their use of strategy. Children did not generalize questioning strategy to reliability, but they did appear to view better questioners as broadly more knowledgeable and more competent. The extent to which children justified their choices by referencing relative information gain did not predict their identification of a better questioner in the generalization trials, though it did increase significantly with age and was significantly predicted by their scores in the Question Game. This suggests that, with age, children become more adept both at identifying better questions and in providing cogent explanations for their reasoning. Future work is needed to explore older age groups and develop strategies to help children make direct connections between questioning strategy and relative information gain.Item GUIDED DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES SUPPORTING MATHEMATICAL UNDERSTANDING IN CHILDREN(2018) Daubert, Emily; Ramani, Geetha B; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Early numerical knowledge lays the foundation for later mathematics achievement, career advancement, and daily functioning. Therefore, it is troubling that mathematics achievement in the United States is especially poor. For this reason, it is crucial that ways to improve learning outcomes in young children, particularly in the area of mathematical development are explored. Mathematics is a complex process, which requires flexible thinking, exploration and analysis of novel, complicated, and real world problems. Guided discovery is a pedagogical context, which is adult-initiated and child-directed and promotes flexible thinking, analysis of complex problems- the same skills required for early mathematical learning. The goal of this study was to examine the effectiveness of one element of guided discovery- dialogic inquiry- for improving children’s numerical knowledge when used in a guided discovery setting. Dialogic inquiry is the practice of asking questions that lead children to think differently about the mathematical concepts at hand or act differently on the objects in their environments. Ninety-four preschoolers played a life-sized linear number board game under three conditions and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: math-related dialogic inquiry, math statements, and positive encouragement. Children’s learning from pretest to posttest was compared on four numerical knowledge outcomes: number line estimation, magnitude comparison, arithmetic, and ordinality. Additionally, children’s mathematical talk and behavior during board game play were compared across conditions. Children in the dialogic inquiry condition improved more than children in the math statements and positive encouragement conditions on arithmetic performance. Children in the math statements condition declined in performance on magnitude comparison significantly more than children in the dialogic inquiry and positive encouragement conditions. Lastly, children in both the dialogic inquiry and math statements conditions outperformed children in the positive encouragement condition on ordinality. There were no significant differences between conditions for mathematical talk and behavior. Understanding the specific mechanisms, such as dialogic inquiry, which contribute to the effectiveness of guided discovery will improve the implementation of guided discovery pedagogies aimed at improving numerical knowledge.Item Prompting Rural Students' Use of Prior Knowledge and Experience to Support Comprehension of Unfamiliar Content(2018) Hattan, Courtney; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prior knowledge activation is foundational to students’ text comprehension. Yet, pedagogical techniques that teachers can use to prompt students’ knowledge activation are limited and empirical data on the relative effectiveness of those techniques is scant. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the effectiveness of traditional and novel knowledge activation techniques for supporting rural students’ comprehension of texts covering unfamiliar content. In this quasi-experimental study, 149 rural middle-school students were assigned to one of three conditions: knowledge mobilization (traditional), relational reasoning (new), or text annotation (control). Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with text comprehension as the outcome variable and condition, relational reasoning ability, prior topic knowledge, gender, ethnicity, and grade level as predictor variables. The results demonstrated a statistically significant difference for overall comprehension between students in the relational reasoning condition and students in both the mobilization (β = 5.15, p < .00) and control conditions (β = 3.10, p < .00). There were no significant differences between students in the mobilization versus control conditions (β = -1.85, p = .07). Further, there were no comprehension differences for ethnic background or grade level. However, female students outperformed male students, and prior topic knowledge and relational reasoning ability were significant covariates in analysis. Qualitative analysis of follow-up conversations revealed the utility of the relational reasoning condition, especially for low-performing students. The results indicate that not all prior knowledge activation techniques are equally effective for all students engaged in the processing unfamiliar textual content. Additionally, the novel activation technique of relational reasoning proved highly effective for promoting students’ text comprehension.Item THE ROLE OF VIETNAMESE AMERICAN FATHERS’ INVOLVEMENT IN CHILDREN’S EDUCATION(2016) Ho, Amy; Wigfield, Allan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research in the field of parental involvement is important to identify ways to help support children’s academic achievement outside of school. This study extended the literature by examining father involvement within a sample of Vietnamese American fathers using mixed methodologies. Qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 18 fathers; and quantitative data were collected through questionnaires completed by the fathers, mothers, and one school-aged child in the family. The interview data were analyzed using grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and underwent peer review throughout analysis to ensure codes were reliable and valid. The questionnaire data were analyzed using correlations and descriptive statistics. Results from the interviews found two roles that fathers take on in their home involvement, the role of the principal and the role of teacher. Findings also revealed five dimensions to be considered in examining the roles and responsibilities of parents: distribution of roles, flexibility and specificity in the responsibilities of the principal role, and directness and frequency in the responsibilities of the teacher role. Further, results from the qualitative data showed that culture and ethnic identity have influence an on fathers’ beliefs, expectations, and practices. For example, fathers indicated that they prioritize their children’s activities around belief in the Confucius teaching that education is key to upward mobility. The collectivistic views within Asian culture helped fathers to set high expectations and enforce rules for children’s academic achievement as this reflect the achievement of the family and community too. Findings from the quantitative data showed that fathers’ ethnic identity, involvement, beliefs, and expectations, and children’s motivation and achievement were related to each other in various ways. Consistent across both types of data results showed that fathers were more involved at home, specialized and focused on math achievement, and that ethnic identity and culture played a role in the fathers’ beliefs and strategies to parenting. This study provides rich information on the breadth and depth of fathers’ involvement and the process involved in helping their children succeed in school. Future research should continue to examine fathers’ involvement to fully understanding the mechanisms of parental involvement.Item The Best Friendships of Shy/Withdrawn Middle Schoolers(2017) King, Shakeena Jasmine; Rubin, Kenneth H; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Social withdrawal during childhood and adolescence tends to be associated with many outcome such as peer difficulties, and internalizing problems (see Rubin, Coplan, & Bowker 2009). Given the buffering effects of friendship, researchers have also suggested that friendship may help mitigate the negative outcomes socially withdrawn individuals experience throughout their life (e.g. Bukowski, Laursen, & Hoza, 2010) Research pertaining to social withdrawal and friendship quality tends to be rich in nature; however, more research is needed examining socially withdrawn children’s friendship quality and quantity during the middle school years and beyond. Given that friendships tend to have an impact on one’s social development, and peers become increasingly important during adolescence (see Brown & Larson, 2009 for a review), it is important to study friendship quality and quantity beyond the elementary school years. The purpose of this study was to investigate the quality and quantity of friendships among socially withdrawn 6th and 8th graders. Specifically the following study was use to examine whether differences in friendship quality and quantity exist between socially withdrawn 6th graders and 8th graders, to investigate how socially withdrawn children’s mutual best friendships function during middle school years compared to those of typical children, to discover possible gender differences in friendship quality that may occur for socially withdrawn young adolescents, to expand the literature on social withdrawal and its possible association with friendship quantity and quality during early adolescence. The mutual best friendships of shy/withdrawn and control children were examined for prevalence, stability and friendship quality. Through peer nominations of shy/withdrawn and aggressive behaviors that were reported on the Extended Class Play (Rubin et al., 2006), the Shy/Withdrawn and Control groups for the 6th and 8th grade sample were identified from a sample of 6th graders and 8th graders. The Shy/Withdrawn group consisted of 72 8th graders and 152 6th graders and the Control group consisted of 85 8th graders and 158 6th graders. After identifying the groups, the best friend dyads visited the lab and completed several questionnaires such as the The Network of Relationships Inventory (NRI; Furman & Buhrmester, 1985). Consistent with Rubin and colleagues’ (2006) study, findings revealed that shy/withdrawn children were just as likely as control children to have mutual best friendships in both the 6th grade and 8th grade. Furthermore, 6th graders, compared to 8th graders, were more likely to report having a mutual best friend. In terms of the characteristics of the target groups’ best friendships, using the aggression, shy/withdrawn, and peer rejection/victimization ECP factors, no significant group differences were found among the 6th grade sample. Only in the 8th grade sample, shy/withdrawn best friends were significantly more likely to be shy/withdrawn and experience peer rejection and victimization. However, no significant group differences between shy/withdrawn and control young adolescents were found in terms of friendship quality on the NRI. Only significant age differences were found in the NRI in which 8th graders as a whole, compared to the 6th graders, were more likely to rate their friendship quality higher. Furthermore, no significant gender differences in terms of best friendships were found in the 6th grade and 8th grade. Future research involving longitudinal samples on how socially withdrawn adolescents form best friendships is encouraged in order to identify the possible trends and factors associated with forming best friendships and their friendship quality from childhood to adolescence. It may be possible that because early adolescence is a developmental period when peer relationships play a more important role in one’s life, young adolescents, regardless of whether or not they are withdrawn, actively form friendships with others in order to fulfill the need to fit in and form relationships with others. Furthermore, for future studies, researchers should investigate the best friendships of socially withdrawn children and young adolescents based on their motivations for withdrawal since socially withdrawn behavior is not exclusive to only shyness and possible differences in friendship prevalence and stability may exist between these different motivations of social withdrawal.Item READY FOR KINDERGARTEN: A TRAINING PROGRAM DESIGNED TO ENCOURAGE PARENT-CHILD CONVERSATION DURING THE PRESCHOOL YEARS(2016) Leech, Kathryn A.; Ramani, Geetha; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Many children in the United States begin kindergarten unprepared to converse in the academic language surrounding instruction, putting them at greater risk for later language and reading difficulties. Importantly, correlational research has shown there are certain experiences prior to kindergarten that foster the oral language skills needed to understand and produce academic language. The focus of this dissertation was on increasing one of these experiences: parent-child conversations about abstract and non-present concepts, known as decontextualized language (DL). Decontextualized language involves talking about non-present concepts such as events that happened in the past or future, or abstract discussions such as providing explanations or defining unknown words. As caregivers’ decontextualized language input to children aged three to five is consistently correlated with kindergarten oral language skills and later reading achievement, it is surprising no experimental research has been done to establish this relation causally. The study described in this dissertation filled this literature gap by designing, implementing, and evaluating a decontextualized language training program for parents of 4-year-old children (N=30). After obtaining an initial measure of decontextualized language, parents were randomly assigned to a control condition or training condition, the latter of which educated parents about decontextualized language and why it is important. All parents then audio-recorded four mealtime conversations over the next month, which were transcribed and reliably coded for decontextualized language. Results indicated that trained parents boosted their DL from roughly 17 percent of their total utterances at baseline to approximately 50 percent by the mid-point of the study, and remained at these boosted levels throughout the duration of the study. Children’s DL was also boosted by similar margins, but no improvement in children’s oral language skills was observed, measured prior to, and one month following training. Further, exploratory analyses pointed to parents’ initial use of DL and their theories of the malleability of intelligence (i.e., growth mindsets) as moderators of training gains. Altogether, these findings are a first step in establishing DL as a viable strategy for giving children the oral language skills needed to begin kindergarten ready to succeed in the classroom.Item STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TEACHER INSTRUMENTAL SUPPORT AS A PREDICTOR OF MOTIVATION IN READING AND MATH AND ACHIEVEMENT FROM SECOND THROUGH TWELFTH GRADE(2016) Mason-Singh, Amanda Marie; Wigfield, Allan; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this study, relations among students’ perceptions of instrumental help/support from their teachers and their reading and math ability beliefs, subjective task values, and academic grades, were explored from elementary through high school. These relations were examined in an overall sample of 1,062 students from the Childhood and Beyond (CAB) study dataset, a cohort-sequential study that followed students from elementary to high school and beyond. Multi-group structural equation model (SEM) analyses were used to explore these relations in adjacent grade pairs (e.g., second grade to third grade) in elementary school and from middle school through high school separately for males and females. In addition, multi-group latent growth curve (LGC) analyses were used to explore the associations among change in the variables of interest from middle school through high school separately for males and females. The results showed that students’ perceptions of instrumental help from teachers significantly positively predicted: (a) students’ math ability beliefs and reading and math task values in elementary school within the same grade for both girls and boys, and (b) students’ reading and math ability beliefs, reading and math task values, and GPA in middle and high school within the same grade for both girls and boys. Overall, students’ perceptions of instrumental help from teachers more consistently predicted ability beliefs and task values in the academic domain of math than in the academic domain of reading. Although there were some statistically significant differences in the models for girls and boys, the direction and strength of the relations in the models were generally similar for both girls and boys. The implications for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.Item Relations among Topic Knowledge, Individual Interest, and Relational Reasoning, and Critical Thinking in Maternity Nursing(2016) Fountain, Lily; Alexander, Patricia A.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Critical thinking in learners is a goal of educators and professional organizations in nursing as well as other professions. However, few studies in nursing have examined the role of the important individual difference factors topic knowledge, individual interest, and general relational reasoning strategies in predicting critical thinking. In addition, most previous studies have used domain-general, standardized measures, with inconsistent results. Moreover, few studies have investigated critical thinking across multiple levels of experience. The major purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which topic knowledge, individual interest, and relational reasoning predict critical thinking in maternity nurses. For this study, 182 maternity nurses were recruited from national nursing listservs explicitly chosen to capture multiple levels of experience from prelicensure to very experienced nurses. The three independent measures included a domain-specific Topic Knowledge Assessment (TKA), consisting of 24 short-answer questions, a Professed and Engaged Interest Measure (PEIM), with 20 questions indicating level of interest and engagement in maternity nursing topics and activities, and the Test of Relational Reasoning (TORR), a graphical selected response measure with 32 items organized in scales corresponding to four forms of relational reasoning: analogy, anomaly, antithesis, and antinomy. The dependent measure was the Critical Thinking Task in Maternity Nursing (CT2MN), composed of a clinical case study providing cues with follow-up questions relating to nursing care. These questions align with the cognitive processes identified in a commonly-used definition of critical thinking in nursing. Reliable coding schemes for the measures were developed for this study. Key findings included a significant correlation between topic knowledge and individual interest. Further, the three individual difference factors explained a significant proportion of the variance in critical thinking with a large effect size. While topic knowledge was the strongest predictor of critical thinking performance, individual interest had a moderate significant effect, and relational reasoning had a small but significant effect. The findings suggest that these individual difference factors should be included in future studies of critical thinking in nursing. Implications for nursing education, research, and practice are discussed.Item MODELING MULTIPLE SOURCE USE: USING LEARNER CHARACTERISTICS AND SOURCE USE BEHAVIORS TO PREDICT RESPONSE QUALITY(2014) List, Alexandra; Alexander, Patricia A; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Multiple source use (MSU) has been identified as both a critical competency and a key challenge for today's students, living in the digital age (Goldman & Scardamalia, 2013b). Theoretical models of multiple source use provide insights into how the MSU process unfolds and identify points at which students may encounter challenges (i.e., in source selection, processing, and evaluation, Rouet & Britt). However, understandings of MSU have been limited by two gaps in the literature. First, while points of challenge in students' MSU process have been examined independently, comprehensive models considering the joint role of source selection, processing, and evaluation in task performance have not been fully investigated. Further, while research on MSU has focused on students' behaviors when engaging with texts, individual difference factors have been considered only to a limited extent, despite their theorized importance (Rouet, 2006). The purpose of the present study was to examine the extent to which multiple source use behaviors (i.e., source selection, processing, and evaluation) and learner characteristics (i.e., prior knowledge, domain general source evaluation behaviors, stances on the target issue) predicted open-ended task performance, both independently and in conjunction with one another. Participants were 197 undergraduate students, asked to complete measures assessing their prior knowledge, stances on the Arab Spring in Egypt, the topic of the task, and domain general source evaluation behaviors. Then, participants were tasked with using a library of six sources to respond to a controversial prompt about a contemporary event (i.e., Arab Spring in Egypt). While students engaged with sources, log data of source use were collected (e.g., number of sources accessed, time on texts) and participants were asked to rate sources accessed in terms of trustworthiness, usefulness, and interestingness. Four indices were used to assess open-ended response quality: (a) word count, (b) the number of arguments included in students' responses, (c) scores on the SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982), reflecting the extent to which students' responses integrated and evaluated information presented across texts, and (d) the number of citations in students' answers. Key findings included the role of students' ratings of source interestingness and time on texts as predictive of open-ended task performance. Further, students' accessing of document information about sources (e.g., author credentials that may aid in source evaluation, Britt & Aglinskas, 2002) and trustworthiness evaluations were found to be associated with SOLO scores. Overall, as compared to multiple source use behaviors, learner characteristics were found to have a more limited effect on task performance. Findings are discussed and implications for theoretical conceptions of multiple source use and instructional practice are presented.