Assessing individual differences in young children

Cognitive styles characterize individuals' personalities as well as their social and cognitive functioning. An assessment of cognitive styles provides an appraisal which extends the assessment of mental performance beyond the levelsof achievement to patterns of cognitive functioning and thus can present another dimension of individual differences in children as the basis for planning and evaluating early childhood programs.     

Developing phonological awareness and word recognition skills: A two-year intervention with low-income,inner-city children

Low-income, inner-city children were involved in a two-year intervention delivered in the regular classroom by regular classroom teachers to develop phonological awareness and word recognition skills. For the treatment children, an 11-week phoneme awareness program in kindergarten was followed by a first grade reading program (extended to grade 2 for some children) that emphasized explicit, systematic instruction in the alphabetic code. Control children participated in the school district's regular basal reading program. Both groups participated in a phonetically-based spelling program mandated by the district. At the end of grade 1, treatment children (n = 66) significantly outperformed control children (n = 62) on measures of phonological awareness, letter name and letter sound knowledge, and three measures of word recognition, and reached marginal significance (0.056) on a fourth. They also significantly outperformed the control children on two measures of spelling. One year later, at the end of grade 2, the treatment children (n = 58) significantly outperformed the control children (n = 48) on all four measures of word recognition. For the groups as a whole, there were no differences on the one measure of spelling readministered at the end of grade 2. However, there were significant differences in spelling between the treatment (n = 16) and control children (n = 13) who remained in the bottom quartile of spellers at the end of grade 2 when partial credit was given for phonetically correct spelling, and significant differences in reading favoring these treatment children on all four measures of word recognition.     

Understanding the growth of ESL paragraph writing skills and its relationships with linguistic features

This study sought to examine the development of paragraph writing skills of 116 English as a second language university students over the course of 12 weeks and the relationship between the linguistic features of students’ written texts as measured by Coh-Metrix – a computational system for estimating textual features such as cohesion and coherence – and the scores assigned by human raters. The raters’ reliability was investigated using many-facet Rasch measurement (MFRM); the growth of students’ paragraph writing skills was explored using a factor-of-curves latent growth model (LGM); and the relationships between changes in linguistic features and writing scores across time were examined by path modelling. MFRM analysis indicates that despite several misfits, students’ and raters’ performances and scale’s functionality conformed to the expectations of MFRM, thus providing evidence of psychometric validity for the assessments. LGM shows that students’ paragraph writing skills develop steadily during the course. The Coh-Metrix indices have more predictive power before and after the course than during it, suggesting that Coh-Metrix may struggle to discriminate between some ability levels. Whether a Coh-Metrix index gains or loses predictive power over time is argued to be partly a function of whether raters maintain or lose sensitivity to the linguistic feature measured by that index in their own assessment as the course progresses.     

Predicting writing skill development with word recognition and preschool readiness skills

In this longitudinal study, the writing skill development of154 Finnish-speaking children was followed from preschool to thethird grade. The focus was on predictive associations betweenpreschool writing readiness skills and later mechanics ofwriting, as well as between word recognition skill, mechanics ofwriting, and composition coherence. In addition, comparisons weremade between boys and girls to see to what extent writing skilldevelopment is gender-specific. Multi-group structural equationmodeling was used for statistical analysis. The results indicatedthat both mechanics of writing and composition coherence could bepredicted from performance on the same skill at an earlier pointin time. Preschool measures of phonological and visual-motorskills predicted later mechanics of writing. Word recognitionworked as a predictor of later mechanics of writing andcomposition coherence, but only starting from second grade, whenthe development of the word recognition skill had becomestabilized at a high enough level. Furthermore, first grademechanics of writing predicted second grade compositioncoherence, but only at this early stage of productive writingwhen there were still difficulties in the mechanics of writing.Girls were better at tasks measuring mechanics of writing andwrote more coherent stories than boys. The gender difference inthe mechanics of writing at the first grade level was explainedby the presented model. Educational implications were discussed.     

The pathway to English word reading in Chinese ESL children: the role of spelling

The present longitudinal study investigated the role of spelling as a bridge between various reading-related predictors and English word reading in Chinese children learning English as a Second Language (ESL). One hundred and forty-one 5-year-old kindergarten children from Hong Kong, whose first language (L1) was Cantonese and second language (L2) was English, were administered tests of phonological awareness, letter knowledge, English vocabulary, spelling and English word reading at three time points (T1, T2 and T3) at 3-month intervals over a 6-month period. Nonverbal IQ was included as a control variable. The results showed that phonological awareness, letter knowledge and English vocabulary at T1 all predicted English word reading (T3) through spelling (T2). Further mediation analyses showed that, for phonological awareness and English vocabulary, full mediation effects were found. For letter knowledge, a partial mediation effect was observed. These results suggest that, in Chinese ESL kindergarteners, reading-related predictors foster word reading via spelling, a process that intersects phonology, orthography and semantics. Practical implications of these findings were also discussed.     

The diagnostic assessment of word recognition and phonic skills in five‐year‐olds

Parallel versions of a new multiple‐choice word‐recognition test were administered to 1019 and 590 Year‐1 pupils respectively. The test format was based on a published test of Word Recognition and Phonic Skills and was intended to provide reliable diagnostic information. It was found that internally consistent measures of three types of word recognition error could be derived (relating to consonants, vowels and phoneme omission), but that scales for letter order errors were unreliable. Information about the length of words which an individual can usually recognise, the proportion of high frequency to low frequency words recognised and the relative ease of recognising regular and irregular words were also considered as having possible implications for teaching. Of these measures, only word length was found to be a strong independent predictor of word recognition. Implications of these findings for the future development of norm‐referenced tests that at the same time provide objective feedback about individual strengths and weaknesses are discussed.     

Understanding teachers with extreme individual learning differences: developing more effective teachers

Three teachers, who held extreme preferences for the ways they learn, participated in a year‐long professional development course, designed to sensitize teachers to their own and colleagues’ individual learning differences (ILDs). The case study focuses on their extreme learning preferences and discusses the impact of these preferences on their language, beliefs and practice, both before and after the course. The teachers’ learning preferences were determined from their scores on seven learning/cognitive styles tools and understood further from field notes, interviews and pre‐/post‐test responses. The study suggests that teachers with extreme learning preferences tend to: (a) teach the way they prefer to learn; (b) overgeneralize and project their own learning needs onto students; and (c) hold initial pathognomonic (“blame the learner”) beliefs about students mismatched to them. After the course, the teachers changed their language, beliefs and practice in the direction of becoming more effective teachers, e.g., they held more interventionist beliefs (“I can intervene to help the learner”). The three teachers were strong prototypes who can provide insights about the importance of ILDs in learning, practice and professional development.     

An investigation into the relation between word recognition skills,reading comprehension and spelling skills in the first two years of primary school

During the past five years a comprehensive research project called ‘The prevention of reading difficulties’ has been designed and carried out in the Netherlands. This project included a longitudinal study to investigate the development of various sub-skills in word recognition, reading comprehension and spelling over a period of three years. Two samples, including 12 schools each, were drawn at random. The data have been analysed by means of the general LISREL-model. The results of the two groups largely agree with each other. With respect to the reading prerequisites two factors are found, a general factor and an auditory factor. The influence of the general factor appears clearly stronger than the other one. After 3 to 4 months of formal reading instruction, decoding speed and spelling turn out to be distinguishable factors. The influence of spelling on decoding skills supports the view that at this initial stage accuracy in the analysis and blending of words is a prerequisite to learning to decode quickly. It may be concluded that after eight months of reading instruction decoding skills, reading comprehension and spelling are clearly distinguishable factors. Decoding skills influence reading comprehension. However, the path coefficients are not so high as to be able to attribute differences in reading comprehension almost completely to differences in decoding skills. The distinctive character of the three factors of decoding, comprehension and spelling is revealed much more clearly than in cross-sectional research. These results correspond with the assumption that cross-sectionally found causal effects often decrease or disappear all together in favour of ‘memory effects’ in longitudinal research.     

Effects of tactile training on visual speechreading: performance changes related to individual differences in cognitive skills

We report on a follow-up study of the R?nnberg, Andersson, Lyxell, & Spens (1998) speech tracking training study. The purpose was to examine, initially and after training, the effects of different tactile aids on tasks of visual speechreading. We also examined cognitive prerequisites for initial baseline speechreading and posttraining speechreading performance. Compared with speechreading alone, tactile aids impaired sentence-based speechreading at first, although performance improved with training. No effects of vibrotactile aids or training were obtained for visual word-decoding. Initial baseline speechreading performance and posttraining performance correlated with cognitive skills, but the size of the correlations changed. The size of the correlations also varied with the different tactually mediated speechreading conditions.     

Improving word reading speed: individual differences interact with a training focus on successes or failures

The effect of two training procedures on the development of reading speed in poor readers is examined. One training concentrates on the words the children read correctly (successes), the other on the words they read incorrectly (failures). Children were either informed or not informed about the training focus. A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 79 poor readers. They repeatedly read regularly spelled Dutch consonant?Cvowel?Cconsonant words, some children their successes, others their failures. The training used a computerized flashcards format. The exposure duration of the words was varied to maintain an accuracy rate at a constant level. Reading speed improved and transferred to untrained, orthographically more complex words. These transfer effects were characterized by an Aptitude-Treatment Interaction. Poor readers with a low initial reading level improved most in the training focused on successes. For poor readers with a high initial reading level, however, it appeared to be more profitable to practice with their failures. Informing students about the focus of the training positively affected training: The exposure duration needed for children informed about the focus of the training decreased more than for children who were not informed. This study suggests that neither of the two interventions is superior to the other in general. Rather, the improvement of general reading speed in a transparent orthography is closely related to both the children??s initial reading level and the type of words they practice with: common and familiar words when training their successes and uncommon and less familiar words with training their failures.     

Understanding learner acceptance of learning objects: The roles of learning object characteristics and individual differences

Many organisations and institutions have integrated learning objects into their e-learning systems to make the instructional resources more efficient. Like any other information systems, this trend has made user acceptance of learning objects an increasingly critical issue as a high level of learner satisfaction and acceptance reflects that the users are more willing to continue to use the technology. In this study, an extended version of technology acceptance model (TAM) with two external variables (learning object characteristics and individual differences) was developed to investigate the underlying factors and causal relationships in predicting learners' acceptance of learning objects. This study called for the respondents to progress through two phases of learning object participation: introduction and direct-use experience to investigate the students' perceptions in terms of usefulness and ease of use while utilising learning objects. The findings show that both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are determinants of behavioural intention to use learning objects. Learning object characteristics influence both perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of learning objects; individual differences appear to have no influence upon intention to use learning objects.     

Soft skills in higher education: importance and improvement ratings as a function of individual differences and academic performance

Three UK studies on the relationship between a purpose‐built instrument to assess the importance and development of 15 ‘soft skills’ are reported. Study 1 (N = 444) identified strong latent components underlying these soft skills, such that differences between‐skills were over‐shadowed by differences between‐students. Importance and improving ratings on these skills predicted academic performance and accounted for the effects of personality on academic performance. Study 2 replicated the structure of the soft skills inventory and associations with academic performance in a larger sample (N = 1309). Examination of mean differences across faculties (humanities, life sciences, hard sciences) revealed higher soft skills ratings in ‘softer’ courses. Study 3 (N = 87) incorporated an IQ measure, which was found to be negatively related to importance ratings on soft skills. Results highlight the cohesive structure of beliefs concerning various non‐academic skills and their significant links to educationally relevant individual differences. Theoretical, methodological and applied implications are considered.     

The role of phonological memory,word recognition,and comprehension skills in reading development: from preschool to grade 2

We examined the relationships among phonologicalawareness, phonological memory, and development ofreading skills in a longitudinal study, by following222 Finnish preschoolers through the grade 2.The main focus was on the role of phonological memoryin word recognition and comprehension. The skillsassessed were verbal abilities, phonological memory,phonological awareness, word recognition, listeningand reading comprehension, altogether comprising themost extensive set of variables so far used in thestudy of phonological memory and reading. We proposeda structural equation model for the developmentalrelationships among the variables. This model waslargely confirmed by the data. The most significantpredictor of word recognition was phonologicalawareness. Phonological memory had only a weak effecton phonological awareness at preschool age, andvia this connection, a weak indirect effect on grade 1 word recognition. Contrary toexpectations, phonological memory also had asignificant, albeit weak effect on grade 2word recognition. Phonological memory did notdirectly affect reading comprehension. However,it was strongly related to listeningcomprehension at preschool, and via the strongeffects of both listening comprehension and wordrecognition on reading comprehension, there weresignificant indirect effects of phonological memory onreading comprehension. The results also underline thestability of development of phonological memory, wordrecognition, and comprehension from preschool to theend of grade 2.     

A longitudinal analysis of sex differences in math and spatial skills in primary school age children

We report on a longitudinal study designed to assess possible sex differences in math achievement, math ability, and math-related tasks during the primary school age years. Participants included over 200 children from one public school district. Annual assessments included measures of math ability, math calculation achievement scores, rapid naming and decoding tasks, visual perception tests, visual motor tasks, and reading skills. During select years of the study we also administered tests of counting and math facts skills. We examined whether girls or boys were overrepresented among the bottom or top performers on any of these tasks, relative to their peers, and whether growth rates or predictors of math-related skills differed for boys and girls. Our findings support the notion that sex differences in math are minimal or nonexistent on standardized psychometric tests routinely given in assessments of primary school age children. There was no persistent finding suggesting a male or female advantage in math performance overall, during any single year of the study, or in any one area of math or spatial skills. Growth rates for all skills, and early correlates of later math performance, were comparable for boys and girls. The findings fail to support either persistent or emerging sex differences on non-specialized math ability measures during the primary school age years.