In this paper we compare two approaches to measuring the average rate at which students learn in a given school or district. One type of measure--longitudinal growth measures--relies on student-level longitudinal data. A second type--cohort growth measures--relies only on repeated aggregated, cross-sectional data. Because student-level data is…

Evidence of student growth is a primary outcome of interest for educational accountability systems. When three or more years of student test data are available, questions around how students grow and what their predicted growth is can be answered. Given that test scores contain measurement error, this error should be considered in growth and…

The current study determined growth patterns during an 8-week writing intervention and then examined the association between growth pattern and students' initial skills as determined by instructional-level data. One hundred forty-seven first-grade students struggling with early literacy skills received a writing intervention at one of two tiers of…

The process of setting and evaluating student learning objectives (SLOs) has become increasingly popular as an example where classroom assessment is intended to fulfill the dual purpose use of informing instruction and holding teachers accountable. A concern is that the high-stakes purpose may lead to distortions in the inferences about students…

In this study, gain score, and categorical growth models were used to examine the role of student (gender and socioeconomic level) and school characteristics (school size and school resources) in the student growth on comprehension skills in language. The participants of this study were 2,416 sixth-grade students in 2011 who became seventh-grade…

Educational research continues to reiterate the need for inquiry-based instruction in secondary science. However, the patterns of how teachers implement inquiry-based pedagogy have not been thoroughly studied--particularly from a quantitative perspective. This study is based on data from 422 observations of 50 teachers collected during a 5-year…

Longitudinal data analysis assumes that scales meet the assumption of longitudinal measurement invariance (i.e., that scales function equivalently across measurement occasions). This simulation study examines the impact of violations to the assumption of longitudinal measurement invariance on growth models and whether modeling the invariance…

The latent growth model (LGM) in structural equation modeling (SEM) may be extended to allow for the modeling of associations among multiple latent growth trajectories, resulting in a multiple domain latent growth model (MDLGM). While the MDLGM is conceived as a more powerful multivariate analysis technique, the examination of its methodological…

We analyzed teacher supervision and evaluation policy systems in 30 states since the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 in the United States (US). This qualitative study of state ESSA policy documents and legislation examined how teacher supervision and evaluation systems (TSES) models have been developed under ESSA,…

Small samples are common in growth models due to financial and logistical difficulties of following people longitudinally. For similar reasons, longitudinal studies often contain missing data. Though full information maximum likelihood (FIML) is popular to accommodate missing data, the limited number of studies in this area have found that FIML…

While states are no longer required to set up teacher evaluation systems based in significant part on student test scores, quite a few continue to use value-added (VAMs) or student growth percentile (SGP) models for that purpose. In this study, we analyzed three years of teacher data to illustrate the performance of teachers' median growth…

Despite focused efforts, achievement gaps remain a problem in America's education system, especially those between students from higher and lower income families. Continued work on reducing these gaps benefits from an understanding of students' reading and math growth from typical school instruction and how growth differs based on initial…

Despite focused efforts, achievement gaps remain a problem in the America's education system, especially those between students from higher and lower income families. Continued work on reducing these gaps benefits from an understanding of students' reading and math growth from typical school instruction and how growth differs based on initial…

This study investigated the optimal strategy for model specification search under the latent growth modeling (LGM) framework, specifically on searching for the correct polynomial mean or average growth model when there is no a priori hypothesized model in the absence of theory. In this simulation study, the effectiveness of different starting…

This study compared the relative contribution of earliest assessment of preschool children's context-specific problem behaviors with subsequent observations of those behaviors for the prediction of later academic and sociobehavioral performance in first grade. Using a nationally representative sample of low-income children from the Head Start…