Education Commons^™

Longitudinal Analysis For Ordinal Data Through Multilevel And Item Response Modeling: Applications To Child Observation Record (Cor), Zijia Li

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

The large proportion of children from low SES backgrounds and the increasing achievement gap between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers are beckoning national attention to investment in early childhood education (Reid, Kagan, Hilton, & Potter, 2015). As evidenced in many research studies (e.g., Heckman & Masterov, 2007), early childhood experiences are critical to the development of children. High-quality early learning is necessary for children, especially disadvantaged children, to narrow the school readiness gap and to build a foundation for more advanced academic, social, and cognitive skills. Importantly, high quality assessment tools (i.e., reliability and validity evidence supporting the …