Other Research
2007-2008 Abstracts
Community Effects on Kindergarten to Fifth Grade Educational Achievement
Glenn D. Israel and Ramon C. Littell
Previous studies have shown that communities are an important factor in mediating the effects of families and schools on students’ achievement in secondary schools. Community attributes such as organizational diversity, social inequality, economic and human resources, as well as location, can either support or inhibit educational processes. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), we explore the effect of community factors using place-level data on the educational achievement of younger students. Initial analyses of test scores show that children who attend a school in rural and limited resource communities are disadvantaged at entry into kindergarten and this gap increases through the fifth grade.
Home Language and Educational Achievement: Mediating Effects of Family Social Capital and Residence
Georgia E. Bianchi and Glenn D. Israel
This paper examines the multiple effects of home language, family social capital and rural-urban residence on reading gains from the fall of kindergarten to the spring of first grade. As expected, children from non-English speaking homes entered Kindergarten with lower reading scores than their counterparts. Their gains were comparable from kindergarten throughout the first grade, however the gains were not sufficient for children from non-English speaking homes to close the reading gap. School factors, such as receiving pull-out English as a Second Language (ESL) services, also were significant. Family social capital had positive mediating effects, which influenced children from non-English speaking homes more strongly than English speaking home peers. Residence also had an effect resulting in rural children from non-English speaking homes at the greatest disadvantage. The findings show that while some structural factors contributing to reading gaps may not be easily altered, families can take action to positively influence their children’s educational attainment.
Effects of Answer Space Size on Responses to Open-ended Questions in Mail Surveys
Glenn D. Israel
Open-ended questions can provide valuable information to help researchers understand a respondent’s thinking but using such questions has proven problematic in mail surveys. Experimental data are used to assess the impact of answer space size on the length and content of responses to two open-ended questions that are part of Florida Cooperative Extension’s customer satisfaction survey. Based on 2,200 responses collected from 2003 to 2006, the size of the answer space showed no affect on the propensity to answer, but did impact the length of the response with larger spaces eliciting more words and sentences. In addition, there were no significant differences in the valence of responses but larger spaces were more likely to have details elaborated or an emotive elaboration. These results suggest that it is better to design larger answer spaces to more fully capture additional details in answers, as well as feelings of respondents.
