Excellence in Research: Pathways to Academic Success in African American Children

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Children with better cognitive skills perform better in school. Academic performance begins to stabilize by the third grade, thereby setting the stage for scholarly achievements in high school. Most knowledge about this topic has been gleaned from studies of Caucasian children or low-income African American children. Little is known about predictors of early achievement across various socioeconomic levels among African American children. For this study, the investigator will conduct a longitudinal follow-up of an economically diverse sample of African American children who were originally assessed when they were in preschool and kindergarten. Data will be collected about these children at two additional time points that coincide with their fourth and fifth grade years. This study will advance knowledge regarding academic achievement of African American children by identifying developmental interconnections between achievement and three cognitive processes, and by determining how the interaction of these cognitive processes with classroom quality and student-teacher relationship quality are linked to academic success in math and reading.Using an economically diverse sample of African American children, the investigator will assess child/family demographics, child cognitive ability (crystallized intelligence, fluid intelligence, executive functioning), classroom quality, student-teacher relationship quality, and academic achievement. The investigator hypothesizes that fluid intelligence and executive functioning will predict math achievement, while crystallized intelligence will predict reading achievement. The investigator also hypothesizes that executive functioning will mediate the association between fluid and crystallized intelligence, and that fluid (compared to crystallized) intelligence will be a more distal predictor of achievement. In addition, the investigator predicts that associations between cognition and achievement will be moderated and/or mediated by classroom quality and student-teacher relationship quality. The project will have a significant impact on science, educational policy, and society by increasing basic understanding of factors that impact early academic achievement. The study will also provide training and mentoring opportunities for female undergraduate students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.