Developmental Processes, Long-Term Impacts, and Patterns of Indirect Effects of an Early Childhood Intervention

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Individual and Contextual Factors Affecting Child and Adolescent Development

Abstract

Questions about observed heterogeneities of intervention-generated impacts on short, medium and longer-run outcomes; fadeout; and later emergence of impacts stand at the forefront of educational research. In the small literature on mediated effects of educational interventions, the nature and longitudinal patterns of mediating mechanisms remain unknown. A methodological framework was proposed to investigate Abecedarian (a well-known early education intervention) mediating pathways leading to gain on completed schooling by age 30. Results indicated that the proportion of indirect effects to Abecedarian total impact was: 1) increasing across time (about 20% of the total effect was mediated at age 8, vs. 50% at age 15); 2) more diverse in its composition with an independent share explained by foot-in-the-door processes.

Authors

• Remy Pages, University of California - Irvine

• Greg Duncan, University of California - Irvine

• Drew Bailey, University of California - Irvine