TY - JOUR
T1 - Longitudinal mathematics development of students with learning disabilities and students without disabilities
T2 - A comparison of linear, quadratic, and piecewise linear mixed effects models
AU - Kohli, Nidhi
AU - Sullivan, Amanda L
AU - Sadeh, Shanna
AU - Zopluoglu, Cengiz
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Society for the Study of School Psychology.
PY - 2015/4/1
Y1 - 2015/4/1
N2 - Effective instructional planning and intervening rely heavily on accurate understanding of students' growth, but relatively few researchers have examined mathematics achievement trajectories, particularly for students with special needs. We applied linear, quadratic, and piecewise linear mixed-effects models to identify the best-fitting model for mathematics development over elementary and middle school and to ascertain differences in growth trajectories of children with learning disabilities relative to their typically developing peers. The analytic sample of 2150 students was drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Kindergarten Cohort, a nationally representative sample of United States children who entered kindergarten in 1998. We first modeled students' mathematics growth via multiple mixed-effects models to determine the best fitting model of 9-year growth and then compared the trajectories of students with and without learning disabilities. Results indicate that the piecewise linear mixed-effects model captured best the functional form of students' mathematics trajectories. In addition, there were substantial achievement gaps between students with learning disabilities and students with no disabilities, and their trajectories differed such that students without disabilities progressed at a higher rate than their peers who had learning disabilities. The results underscore the need for further research to understand how to appropriately model students' mathematics trajectories and the need for attention to mathematics achievement gaps in policy.
AB - Effective instructional planning and intervening rely heavily on accurate understanding of students' growth, but relatively few researchers have examined mathematics achievement trajectories, particularly for students with special needs. We applied linear, quadratic, and piecewise linear mixed-effects models to identify the best-fitting model for mathematics development over elementary and middle school and to ascertain differences in growth trajectories of children with learning disabilities relative to their typically developing peers. The analytic sample of 2150 students was drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study - Kindergarten Cohort, a nationally representative sample of United States children who entered kindergarten in 1998. We first modeled students' mathematics growth via multiple mixed-effects models to determine the best fitting model of 9-year growth and then compared the trajectories of students with and without learning disabilities. Results indicate that the piecewise linear mixed-effects model captured best the functional form of students' mathematics trajectories. In addition, there were substantial achievement gaps between students with learning disabilities and students with no disabilities, and their trajectories differed such that students without disabilities progressed at a higher rate than their peers who had learning disabilities. The results underscore the need for further research to understand how to appropriately model students' mathematics trajectories and the need for attention to mathematics achievement gaps in policy.
KW - Growth trajectories
KW - Learning disabilities
KW - Longitudinal data analysis
KW - Mathematics achievement
KW - Mixed-effects models
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jsp.2014.12.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jsp.2014.12.002
M3 - Article
C2 - 25746821
AN - SCOPUS:84924263556
SN - 0022-4405
VL - 53
SP - 105
EP - 120
JO - Journal of school psychology
JF - Journal of school psychology
IS - 2
ER -