Aprile Dawn Benner
Postdoctoral Fellow, Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin
Dissertation Title: Using Piecewise Growth Modeling to Understand Urban Youth's Experiences of the Transition to High School (University of California, Los Angeles, 2007)
Dissertation Abstract: For most American youth, school transitions are normative experiences. Although frequent and predictable, school transitions can be disruptive for students across developmental domains. This dissertation examined the transition to high school in an ethnically-diverse, urban sample of 1,979 adolescents attending 11 Title I middle schools. Twice annually, from 7th to 10th grade, survey and school records data were gathered on adolescents’ perceptions of school climate (school liking, belonging), psychological functioning (anxiety, loneliness), and academic behaviors (school engagement, grades, absences). Data on school characteristics were collected from the California Department of Education. Piecewise growth modeling results indicate that adolescents were doing well before the transition but experienced transition disruptions in psychological functioning and grades, and many continued to struggle across high school. The immediate experience of the transition appeared to be particularly challenging for African American and Latino students when the numerical representation of their ethnic groups declined significantly from middle to high school. This research identifies a critical intervention point in at-risk students’ educational careers and highlights the need for specific tools for policy intervention as a way of addressing well-documented racial/ethnic differences in educational attainment that underlie corresponding disparities in income, wealth, fertility, and mortality in the U.S.
Maria Donovan Fitzpatrick
Searle Freedom Trust Postdoctoral Scholar, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford University
Dissertation Title: Early Start: The Economics of Early Childhood Education (University of Virginia, 2008)
Dissertation Abstract: Three states recently introduced Universal Pre-Kindergarten programs offering free preschool to all age-eligible children; policy makers in many other states are promoting similar policies. The expansion of early childhood education programs stems largely from the widely advertised success of a few intensive model interventions, such as Perry Preschool, but the universal programs may have quite different effects. How these programs affect outcomes for children and the behavior of parents informs central questions related to labor supply and the effect of resources on attainment. In my dissertation, I employ a variety of empirical methods (including regression discontinuity), coupled with restricted-access data, to explore the effects of the availability of Universal Pre-Kindergarten on the long term academic achievement of children and the preschool participation and labor supply decisions of families with young children. I find an increase in preschool enrollment coupled with little change in labor supply, signaling that the return to the government’s investment in Universal Pre-Kindergarten should be measured by its effects on child outcomes. Other results show the positive effects on children’s academic achievement are not universal. This leaves open the question of whether scare economic resources might better be spent on subgroups of the population.
Maria Martiniello
Researcher, Center for Validity Research, Educational Testing Service
Dissertation Title: Linguistic Complexity and Differential Item Functioning (DIF) for English Language Learners (ELL) in Math Word Problems (Harvard University, 2008)
Dissertation Abstract: This dissertation studies the validity and fairness of content-area assessments for English Language Learners (ELLs). It examines non-mathematical linguistic complexity as a source of Differential Item Functioning (DIF) for ELLs in a fourth-grade state mathematics test. The dissertation comprises three papers. Paper 1 describes the relationship between linguistic complexity, non-linguistic representations and DIF measures. The greater an item’s non-mathematical lexical and syntactic complexity, the greater the differences in item difficulty favoring non-ELLs over ELLs with equivalent math proficiency. However, the impact of linguistic complexity is attenuated when items provide non-linguistic representations that help ELLs make meaning of the text. Through textual analyses and children’s responses to think-aloud protocols, paper 2 illustrates linguistic characteristics of math word problems that pose disproportionate difficulty for ELLs. Among the features are complex sentences with long noun phrases, unfamiliar vocabulary, polysemous words, and cultural references. Paper 3 examines the limitations of current approaches for detecting DIF in the fairness evaluation of mathematics assessments for ELLs. It proposes an alternative approach, a designated anchor comprised of linguistically simple items; and compares DIF indices obtained through the various approaches. This dissertation has important implications for the development and fairness evaluation of assessments of ELLs’ content knowledge.