Differential effects of teacher judgment on students’ reading trajectories between DLI and non-DLI students

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

It is a common practice that during the instructional process, teachers make judgments of their students’ language and literacy knowledge. Teacher judgments of student knowledge offer a meaningful insight into the assessment of academic progress and play a positive role in the early detection of children at risk for later academic difficulties (Fletcher & Satz, 1984; Kenny & Chekaluk, 1993). Teacher judgments are regularly used for instructional decisions and to identify students in need of specialized instruction (Goodman & Webb, 2006; Helwig et al., 2001). Moreover, teacher judgments of students’ academic achievement can have long-term influences on decisions made about students’ academic opportunities, such as special education entitlement decisions (Gresham et al., 1997). Teacher judgments of students’ reading performance are moderately related to standardized measures of reading performance both concurrently and subsequently (e.g., Bates & Nettelbeck, 2001; Südkamp et al., 2012). To date, limited research has examined how teacher judgment may have differential influence according to linguistic instructional environment. Teacher perceptions of ELs who were not in bilingual programs were generally lower than those of non-ELs. However, teacher perceptions of ELs in bilingual classrooms were not different from those of non-Els (Umansky & Dumont, 2019). However, no study has examined the role of teacher judgment on reading growth for students in dual language immersion (DLI) and non-DLI programs. Therefore, the current study investigated whether first grade teacher judgments of students’ reading abilities have differential effects on students’ reading trajectories between DLI students and their non-DLI peers.

The current study used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), the kindergarten class of 2010-11 public-use data file (ECLS-K:2011). The manuscript sample included 172 students enrolled in DLI programs in first grade, and 1,709 non-DLI students matched on a series of school-, parent-, and student-level covariates using propensity score method. Latent growth curve models were constructed to profile reading growth of both DLI and non-DLI students from first to fifth grade. After specifying an unconditional growth curve model, DLI enrollment was added as a predictor in the model 1. In model 2, DLI enrollment, teacher judgment, and their interaction term was used as predictors. In addition, to test the different effects, growth curve models were specified for DLI (model 3a) and non-DLI (model 3b) students separately, using teacher judgment as the only predictor.

Results showed that teacher judgment moderated the relation between DLI enrollment and students’ reading growth, suggesting that the effect of teacher judgment on reading growth varied for DLI and non-DLI students. Students with lower teacher judgment scores grew faster than students who received higher scores. Furthermore, this effect was more pronounced for DLI students. In other words, DLI students who received low 1st grade teacher judgements experienced the most growth across grades 1 to 5. When comparing two groups of students, DLI students with lower teacher ratings experienced more growth than non-DLI students who were rated low by their teachers. The findings confirmed teachers’ influence on students’ reading growth, and its differential effect between DLI and non-DLI students.

Authors

• Ye Shen, Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Rui Wang, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Fan Zhang, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christina Areizaga Barbieri, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Adrian Pasquarella, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author