Disentangling Literacy Skills, Cross-Disciplinary Language, and Executive Functions in Fourth-Grade Spanish-Speaking Students' Science Achievement

• In Event: STEM Instruction and Interventions Across Contexts

Abstract

This study explores the direct and indirect effects of literacy skills, cross-disciplinary language, and executive functions on science achievement in 4th-grade Chilean, Spanish-speaking students. 126 Chilean monolingual Spanish-speaking 4th-graders were assessed on reading comprehension, reading fluency, cross-discipline academic language, vocabulary skills, working memory, and inhibition to determine their relationship with science achievement. Adopting a structural equation modeling, the relations among these variables were explored by comparing seven nested models. The best-fit model shows that working memory, inhibition, reading comprehension, cross-discipline academic language, and vocabulary skills directly affect science achievement, revealing that literacy, cross-disciplinary language, and executive functions have a significant and complex mediation role in science achievement. Implications for science instruction and science teacher education are discussed.

Authors

• Maximiliano Montenegro, Universidad de La Serena
  Presenting Author

• Alejandra Meneses, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ana M Taboada Barber, University of Maryland
  Non-Presenting Author