Socioeconomic and gender group differences in early literacy skills: a multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis approach

Lee, Julia Ai Cheng; Otaiba, Stephanie Al

doi:10.1080/13803611.2015.1010545

Cited by 37 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Dictated spelling bore significant associations with vocabulary and letter knowledge, phonological awareness and memory for words and pictures. These findings are consistent with the wealth of evidence that has highlighted the close relationships between both vocabulary knowledge and phonological awareness and spelling development (Fraser & Conti-Ramsden, 2008;Johnston, McGeown, & Moxon, 2014;Kent et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2011;Lee & Al Otaiba, 2015;Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2008;Puranik & Al Otaiba, 2012;Puranik, Lonigan, & Kim, 2011). Verbal short-term memory and verbal recoding skills have also been shown to be related to spelling development (Adams et al, 2013;Caravolas, Hulme, & Snowling, 2001;Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2008;Palmer, 2000a).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…Analyses of the standardisation data of normed tests (Camarata & Woodcock, 2006;Pargulski & Reynolds, 2017; also report a female advantage in spelling and writing with small to moderate effect sizes. However, individual research studies present a much less consistent pattern (see also Lee & Al Otaiba, 2015). Whereas some studies report a significant female advantage (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring individual and gender differences in early writing performance

Adams

Simmons

2018

Read Writ

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Boys' relatively poor progress in writing development is of particular concern in education with both cognitive and social factors proposed as possible accounts of this discrepancy. This study examined whether differences in cognitive skills such as handwriting and spelling or phonological processing abilities could explain gender differences in early writing. An opportunity sample of 116 children (52 male) ranging in age from 5:0 to 6:7 years were recruited from six UK schools. Tasks assessing vocabulary and letter knowledge, phonological awareness and phonological short-term memory skills were presented to children who were also asked to complete a number of transcription, spelling and writing tasks. Boys tended to produce shorter written compositions containing fewer correctly spelled words which were judged to be of a lower quality than texts produced by girls. However, no significant advantage for girls was identified in their vocabulary, letter knowledge or phonological processing skills, proposed as cognitive underpinnings of writing. Some relationships between phonological skills and aspects of writing differed between boys and girls and these were explored further in multiple regression analyses with gender and these phonological skills included as interaction terms. Gender predicted significant unique variance, independently of cognitive skills, in alphabet transcription and writing quality, although not dictated spelling skills. No associations between phonological skills and writing were moderated by gender. The possible role for environmental, motivational or attitudinal factors in explaining gender differences in early writing abilities should therefore perhaps be explored.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring individual and gender differences in early writing performance

Adams

Simmons

2018

Read Writ

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“…Handwriting fluency appears to have a relatively strong link to writing performance in the intermediate grades (Berninger, 1999), when students are more likely to begin to produce extended compositions. Similarly, there are significant group differences in spelling achievement for race (Terry, 2006), SES (Lee & Al Otaiba, 2015), and gender (Babayi git, 2015), possibly linked to school quality and mismatches between pronunciation and spelling patterns in nonstandard variants of English.…”

Section: Group Differences That May Affect Language and Transcriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenges of Writing in School: Conceptualizing Writing Development Within a Sociocognitive Framework

Deane

2018

Educational Psychologist

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This article argues for a conceptualization of school writing that emphasizes how cognitive and sociocultural factors interact. In academic, professional, and affinity-based communities, an emphasis on standards of quality drives the adoption of such practices as revision and peer and expert review. In school, everyday writing practices center around demonstrations of knowledge (taking notes, writing summaries, providing personal responses to readings, completing worksheets, etc.) where the teacher is often the sole or primary audience. This context tends to privilege knowledge-telling strategies and prioritize fluency and efficiency of expression. When these sociocultural factors interact with cognition, group differences tend to emerge, as knowledge telling provides few opportunities for disadvantaged groups to overcome barriers linked to differences in prior knowledge, fluency, attention management, or motivation. It also affects the efficacy of instructional practices, because cognitive ability and social identity affect how students internalize the metacognitive concepts and strategies characteristic of expert writers.

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“…Literacy-related difficulties for many children are due to lack of exposure to print or instructional resources, and thus socioeconomic status (SES) is an important demographic variable that strongly relates to academic achievement. The data we use for the illustration are from Lee and Al Otaiba ( 2015 ), and their Table 1 contains sample statistics (sample sizes, means, covariances) on early literacy skills from 2 sociodemographic groups of kindergartners, with N 1 = 78 boys ineligible for free or reduced-price lunch (FRL) and N 2 = 174 boys eligible for FRL. The interest of Lee and Al Otaiba is whether measurements on literature proficiency are invariant when compared students with lower SES (eligible for FRL) against those with higher SES (ineligible for FRL).…”

Section: Real Data Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As indicated in Figure 1 , alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and spelling are the three latent constructs behind the six variables. Lee and Al Otaiba ( 2015 ) examined the MI issues using the conventional methods. Let the boys who are ineligible for FRL be group one and those eligible for FRL be group two.…”

Section: Real Data Examplementioning

confidence: 99%

Advances in Measurement Invariance and Mean Comparison of Latent Variables: Equivalence Testing and A Projection-Based Approach

2017

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Measurement invariance (MI) entails that measurements in different groups are comparable, and is a logical prerequisite when studying difference or change across groups. MI is commonly evaluated using multi-group structural equation modeling through a sequence of chi-square and chi-square-difference tests. However, under the conventional null hypothesis testing (NHT) one can never be confident enough to claim MI even when all test statistics are not significant. Equivalence testing (ET) has been recently proposed to replace NHT for studying MI. ET informs researchers a size of possible misspecification and allows them to claim that measurements are practically equivalent across groups if the size of misspecification is smaller than a tolerable value. Another recent advancement in studying MI is a projection-based method under which testing the cross-group equality of means of latent traits does not require the intercepts equal across groups. The purpose of this article is to introduce the key ideas of the two advancements in MI and present a newly developed R package for researchers to easily apply the two methods. A real data example is provided to illustrate the use of the package. It is advocated that researchers should always consider using the two methods whenever MI needs to be examined.

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Socioeconomic and gender group differences in early literacy skills: a multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis approach

Cited by 37 publications

References 43 publications

Exploring individual and gender differences in early writing performance

Exploring individual and gender differences in early writing performance

The Challenges of Writing in School: Conceptualizing Writing Development Within a Sociocognitive Framework

Advances in Measurement Invariance and Mean Comparison of Latent Variables: Equivalence Testing and A Projection-Based Approach

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