Schooling & Cognitive Development: A Natural Experiment

描述(由申请者提供)：建议的研究有五个主要目标。 首先，这项工作试图考察认知、语言的性质和来源 和从学龄前到早期的识字技能增长 上学的几年。将生态观点与自然实验相结合 (学校中断)，这项研究将具体考察 儿童、家庭和学校教育因素对认知发展轨迹的影响 从三岁到二年级。第二，该项目将探索 构建和绘制扫盲发展道路的效用， 利用分析工具的组合，包括多元回归， 结构方程模型和齐次分组策略。这个 方法的组合将允许创建框架来描述 儿童、家庭和学校教育因素之间复杂、动态的相互作用 塑造学龄儿童的识字能力。第三，“路径” 框架将允许直接检查选定的来源 认知和识字成长方面的领域特殊性。 领域专用性将在一定程度上被视为 儿童和家庭的特点和在校期间的教学经验。 第四，路径概念将被应用于稳定性和 认知和识字技能随年龄的变化。有人争辩说， 儿童的认知、语言或识字技能保持相对稳定或 不会部分地取决于早期影响的相互作用(孩子， 家庭)，在学校环境中同时受到影响。最后， 工作将尝试将路径策略应用于检查以下问题 儿童时期的风险和韧性。在这里也是如此，对这些因素的更充分的理解 这会使儿童面临日后出现负面后果的风险，或者有助于保护 孩子将通过检查增强免受不利环境的后果 随着时间的推移，风险因素和保护因素之间的相互作用 独特的增长轨迹。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed research has five broad aims. First, the work seeks to examine the nature and sources of cognitive, language and literacy skills growth during the transition from preschool to the early school years. Combining an ecological perspective with a natural experiment (school cutoff), the research will examine specifically the interactive role of child, family and schooling factors in shaping trajectories of cognitive growth from three years of age to second grade. Second, the project will explore the utility of constructing and charting developmental pathways to literacy, utilizing a combination of analytic tools, including multiple regression, structural equation modeling and a homogeneous grouping strategy. The combination of methods will permit creation of frameworks for describing the complex, dynamic interactions among child, family and schooling factors that shape literacy acquisition in school-age children. Third, the "pathway" framework will permit direct examination of selected sources of domain-specificity in aspects of cognitive and literacy growth. Domain-specificity will be seen in part as a function of an interaction of child and family characteristics and instructional experiences in school. Fourth, the pathway notion will be applied to an examination of stability and change across age in cognitive and literacy skills. It is argued that whether children's cognitive, language or literacy skills remain relatively stable or not will depend, in part, on the interaction of earlier influences (child, family) with concurrent influences in the schooling environment. Finally, the work will attempt to apply the pathway strategy to examination of issues of risk and resilience in childhood. Here too, fuller understanding of the factors that place a child at risk for later negative outcomes or serve to protect the child from consequences of adverse circumstances will be enhanced by examining the interaction of risk versus protective factors over time as they shape unique trajectories of growth.