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Social interactions, particularly parent-child conversations, play a critical role in children’s early learning and pre-academic skill development. While these interactions are bidirectional, complex, and dynamic, much of the research in this area tends to separate speakers’ talk and capture the frequency of words or utterances. Beyond the aggregation of talk exists rich information about conversational structures and processes, such as the extent to which speakers are aligned or reciprocate each other’s talk. These measures can be derived using categorical cross-recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA), a method that quantifies the temporal structure and co-visitation of individual and sequential events, e.g., utterances between speakers. In this paper, we present an application of CRQA, following the protocol described in our tutorial paper (Duong et al., 2024, this issue), to describe alignment in parent-child conversations about numbers and math (i.e., number talk). We used the ‘crqa’ package in R and the code used in this application is available in the Supplemental Materials. Further, the CRQA measures derived from this application were compared to traditional frequency measures of talk, i.e., counts of utterances, in the prediction of children’s math skills. Overall, we showed that (1) CRQA can be applied to existing transcription data to uncover theoretically-driven patterns of parent-child talk that are not captured by common frequency measures and (2) these CRQA measures offer additional, rich information about interactions beyond frequencies of talk and can be used to predict individual differences in children’s math skills.

Social interactions are defined by the dynamic and reciprocal exchange of information in a process referred to as mutual alignment. Statistical methods for characterizing alignment between two interacting partners are emerging. In general, they exploit the temporal organization of dyadic interactions to uncover the effect of one partner on the other and the extent to which partners are aligned. This paper describes and provides a tutorial on one such method, categorical cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA), which quantifies the temporal structure and co-visitation of individual and sequential states of interest. CRQA is a useful descriptive technique that can be used to explore the extent, structures, and patterns of partner alignment within dyadic interactions. We provide a brief technical introduction to CRQA and a tutorial on its application to understanding parent-child linguistic interactions using the ‘crqa’ package in R (Coco, Monster, Leonardi, Dale, & Wallot, 2021).

The social experience of transitioning to a 4-year university varies widely among students. Some attend with few or no prior contacts or acquaintances from their hometown; others attend with a large network of high school alumni. Using a sample (N = 43,240) of undergraduates spanning 7.5 years at a public university, we examine what factors predict high school peer prevalence (HSPP) on campus and whether HSPP predicts college achievement above and beyond such factors. Analyses found that HSPP was predicted by variables associated with societal privilege (e.g., being White, continuing generation). Above and beyond these variables, HSPP independently predicted higher grades in gateway STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) courses and, among first-generation college students, higher retention. The role of HSPP in fostering equity and inequity is discussed. A preprint of this article is available at https://psyarxiv.com/xhpuc/.

The rapid expansion of school choice is restructuring public education in the United States. This study examines associations between charter and magnet school enrollment, White-Black and White-Hispanic segregation, and test score gaps at the district level from 2009 to 2015 in third to eighth grade using the Stanford Education Data Archive and the U.S. Department of Education's Common Core of Data. Robust findings indicate that higher charter school enrollment is associated with larger White-Black test score gaps and this effect is mediated by White-Black segregation. There is also evidence that magnet school enrollment is associated with White-Hispanic test score gaps. Overall, this study suggests that the expansion of school choice may have negative implications for structural education equity.

Income disparities in children's academic and behavioral skills have grown larger over the past 50 years. At the same time, economic segregation across communities has increased, raising questions regarding the role of community factors in explaining income gaps in children's functioning. Combining geospatial data with longitudinal survey data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011, an ethnically diverse, nationally representative sample of kindergarteners (N ˜ 17,600), this project explored how differences in community- and family-level resources and stressors help to explain family income gaps in achievement, executive functioning, and externalizing behaviors in third grade (age 9). Family income had small to medium associations with more community resources and fewer community stressors, which in turn exhibited small associations with parenting practices. These relations helped explain income gaps in children's functioning. Results have implications for researchers and practitioners focused on narrowing economic skills gaps as well as housing and community planning efforts designed to foster children's positive development.

Longitudinal links between childhood family income and adult outcomes are well documented. However, research on childhood income volatility and young adult outcomes is limited. This study utilizes data from the NLSY (N = 6,410) to examine how childhood family income and income volatility relate to socioeconomic outcomes and mental/behavioral health in emerging adulthood. Results show that lower childhood income was associated with young adult socioeconomic and behavioral health outcomes. Higher income volatility was associated with increased depression and teen parenthood during young adulthood. Additional analyses examining trajectories of income volatility illustrated that children in families with unstable income trajectories (i.e., frequent income losses and gains) showed higher depression scores than those with stable trajectories. These findings suggest that income volatility, not just income level or income loss, is important to consider when studying economic disparities in young adult outcomes. Implications for policies and programs for low-income, high-volatility households are discussed.

Income inequality has increased steadily over the past 40 years. We briefly review the nature and causes of this increase and show that income-based gaps in children's academic achievement and attainment grew as well. To probe whether the increasing income gaps may have played a role in producing the growing achievement and attainment gaps, we summarize the evidence for the effect of family income on children, paying particular attention to the strength of the evidence and the timing of economic deprivation. We show that, in contrast to the nearly universal associations between poverty and children's outcomes as reported in the correlational literature, evidence from social experiments and quasi experiments shows impacts on some domains of child functioning but not others. At the same time, we have no experimental evidence on how economic deprivation affects children in the first several years of life in the United States. Family environments are all important in the first several years of a child's life, when they are developing most rapidly and have limited autonomy from family, yet family incomes tend to be the lowest in these early years of family development. We describe an ongoing experimental study of income effects on infants and toddlers.

A large body of literature has established that chaos in the home environment, characterized by high levels of disorganization, lack of household routine, crowding, noise, and unpredictability, undermines social–emotional and behavioral development in early childhood. It is less clear whether household chaos is linked to elevated risk for behavior problems in adolescence. The aims of this study were 3fold: (1) characterize the variability of adolescent and caregiver reports of household chaos over time; (2) examine associations among caregiver and adolescent reports of chaos over a 9‐month period; (3) consider how between‐ and within‐ individual variability in household chaos predicts adolescent externalizing and internalizing problems. This study drew data from the Family Income Dynamics study, a 9‐month longitudinal study. Participants included 104 adolescents between 14 and 16 years old (55% female; M age = 14.85) and their caregiver (92% female) from low‐ and middle‐income families. Results showed that adolescent‐reports of household chaos were more variable over time compared to caregivers' reports. Adolescent‐reports of household chaos had positive within‐ and between‐level associations with externalizing problems and between‐level associations with internalizing, while caregiver‐reports of chaos had no links to behavior. This work highlights the importance of adolescents' own perceptions of household chaos when considering its links to adolescent development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory and limited research indicate that race and socioeconomic status (SES) interact dynamically to shape children's developmental contexts and academic achievement, but little scholarship examines how race and SES intersect to shape Black-White achievement gaps across development. We used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (N [approximately equal to] 9,100)--which tracks a nationally representative cohort of children in the United States--to investigate how race and family SES (i.e., parental education and household income) intersect to shape trajectories of academic skills development from kindergarten entry through the spring of eighth grade. Results reveal that household income and parental education were differentially related to academic development, with Black-White gaps narrowing (and Black children's skills growing slightly faster) at higher income gradients but widening (and Black children's skills developing more slowly) at higher levels of educational attainment. Despite performance advantages at kindergarten entry, large baseline disparities meant that higher-income Black students underperformed their White peers by middle school, whereas Black students with better-educated parents consistently trailed their White counterparts. Taken together, these findings suggest that failure to examine how race and SES intersect to shape achievement gaps may obscure complex patterns of educational inequality.

In the face of rising economic and social inequality, American parents increasingly seek to promote their children's academic achievement through provision of enriching learning opportunities. In this study, we hypothesized that parental investments in both home and out-of-home learning resources may partially explain socioeconomic disparities in children's academic skills, and may function differently during school versus summer months. Using data drawn from the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort of 2010-2011 (N ˜ 4,000), we assessed children's reading, math, and science skills from kindergarten entry through second grade, attending to how achievement gaps shifted during school versus summer months. Multilevel piecewise latent growth models identified significant, small socioeconomic status (SES) gaps in children's academic skills at kindergarten entry. These initial SES gaps remained stable for reading skills, grew during school months for science skills, and grew during summer months for math skills. Significant, small family SES disparities in home reading-based learning activities, out-of-home enrichment activities, TV/video time, and time in summer camps/child care programs also emerged, helping to explain growth in SES achievement gaps. Specifically, growing SES gaps in science skills appeared driven in part through school-year home learning activities and summer out-of-home enrichment activities. Growing SES gaps in math skills also functioned in part through summer out-of-home enrichment activities. Results suggest the importance of enhancing year-round investments across home, school, and community contexts to support the school success of economically disadvantaged children.

Background: Differences in post-secondary academic outcomes along dimensions of gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status are a major concern. Few studies have considered differences in patterns of academic outcomes and underlying mechanisms driving disparities across different STEM disciplines. Using data from about 4000 undergraduates in introductory STEM courses at a large, urban university in the eastern United States, this study examines how differences in course grades by gender, race/ethnicity, and parent education vary in introductory chemistry, physics, and psychology courses. In addition, structural equation modeling techniques examine whether academic resources and discipline-specific motivational attitudes are important mediators of demographic differences in course grades. Results: This study finds that women have higher course grades than men on average in psychology, and men have marginally higher grades than women in physics. In addition, students whose race/ethnicity is represented or overrepresented in these courses (students who are White and or Asian) have higher course grades in chemistry and physics and marginally higher grades in psychology on average compared with underrepresented students (who are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, and or other racial/ethnic backgrounds). Further, first-generation college students have lower course grades in physics and psychology on average than students with a college-educated parent. The largest average differences in course performance are about half a full letter grade (e.g., the difference between a B and an A-). This study also finds that some demographic differences in physics and chemistry performance are linked to math resources whereas some disparities in psychology are more related to verbal resources. In addition, the results suggest discipline-specific self-efficacy is a motivational attitude associated with course performance in chemistry, physics, and psychology, while discipline-specific interest is only relevant in chemistry. Conclusions: Overall, the findings emphasize that there are demographic differences in post-secondary course performance on average, and academic resources and motivational attitudes help explain these differences. Importantly, the specific findings differ across chemistry, physics, and psychology. Understanding these pathways and how they are similar and different across disciplines within STEM is crucial for developing interventions aimed at attenuating disparities in post-secondary academic outcomes.

With the increasing sophistication of online survey tools and the necessity of distanced research during the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of online questionnaires for research purposes has proliferated. Still, many researchers undertake online survey research without knowledge of the prevalence and likelihood of experiencing survey questionnaire fraud nor familiarity with measures used to identify fraud once it has occurred. This research note is based on the experience of researchers across four sites who implemented an online survey of families' experiences with COVID-19 in the U.S. that was subject to substantial fraud. By the end of data collection, over 70% of responses were flagged as fraudulent with duplicate IP addresses and concurrent start/end times representing the most common indicators of fraud observed. We offer lessons learned to illustrate the sophisticated nature of fraud in online research and the importance of multi-pronged strategies to detect and limit online survey questionnaire fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, does growing up in a poor household cause negative developmental outcomes for children? Hundreds of studies have documented statistical associations between family income in childhood and a host of outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Many of these studies have used correlational evidence to draw policy conclusions regarding the benefits of added family income for children, in particular children in families with incomes below the poverty line. Are these conclusions warranted? After a review of possible mechanisms linking poverty to negative childhood outcomes, we summarize the evidence for income's effects on children, paying particular attention to the strength of the evidence and the timing of economic deprivation. We demonstrate that, in contrast to the nearly universal associations between poverty and children's outcomes in the correlational literature, impacts estimated from social experiments and quasi-experiments are more selective. In particular, these stronger studies have linked increases in family income to increased school achievement in middle childhood and to greater educational attainment in adolescence and early adulthood. There is no experimental or quasi-experimental evidence in the United States that links child outcomes to economic deprivation in the first several years of life. Understanding the nature of socioeconomic influences, as well as their potential use in evidence-based policy recommendations, requires greater attention to identifying causal effects.

Families who live in poverty face disadvantages that can hinder their children's development in many ways, write Greg Duncan, Katherine Magnuson, and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal. As they struggle to get by economically, and as they cope with substandard housing, unsafe neighborhoods, and inadequate schools, poor families experience more stress in their daily lives than more affluent families do, with a host of psychological and developmental consequences. Poor families also lack the resources to invest in things like high-quality child care and enriched learning experiences that give more affluent children a leg up. Often, poor parents also lack the time that wealthier parents have to invest in their children, because poor parents are more likely to be raising children alone or to work nonstandard hours and have inflexible work schedules. Can increasing poor parents' incomes, independent of any other sort of assistance, help their children succeed in school and in life? The theoretical case is strong, and Duncan, Magnuson, and Votruba-Drzal find solid evidence that the answer is yes--children from poor families that see a boost in income do better in school and complete more years of schooling, for example. But if boosting poor parents' incomes can help their children, a crucial question remains: Does it matter when in a child's life the additional income appears? Developmental neurobiology strongly suggests that increased income should have the greatest effect during children's early years, when their brains and other systems are developing rapidly, though we need more evidence to prove this conclusively. The authors offer examples of how policy makers could incorporate the findings they present to create more effective programs for families living in poverty. And they conclude with a warning: if a boost in income can help poor children, then a drop in income--for example, through cuts to social safety net programs like food stamps--can surely harm them.

Small differences in course sequencing may have broad effects on undergraduate science learning. In the current research, we developed an analytical approach for assessing questions about course sequencing using educational data sets, and we applied it to questions about the Psychology major. This study examined the relationships between student achievement (grades) in psychology courses taken before and after methodological courses. We used a longitudinal institutional dataset involving thousands of students across seven cohorts, and control for demographics, SAT achievement, and prior psychology GPA. We found that two courses were especially important: Achievement in statistics and research methods courses related to grades in subsequent advanced seminars, lab courses, and overall psychology GPA. Additionally, relations between research methods achievement and topical course grades were stronger when those courses were taken after versus before research methods, further reducing the likelihood of hidden third variable explanations. The same was not true for most other introductory courses, although it was found for biopsychology, which may be because biopsychology (which also includes neuroscience) is relevant across many areas of psychology, similar to research methods. These correlational findings suggest that requiring students to take research methods and biopsychology early on in the major, and ensuring success in these courses, may enhance subsequent learning. More broadly, this research provides a template for data-based approaches to course sequencing questions within any undergraduate major. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: This study investigates the roles of statistics and research methods courses as part of the psychology major. It found that achievement in these courses, particularly research methods, is especially predictive of achievement in subsequent psychology courses. These results have implications for the design of the psychology curriculum, as they raise the possibility that ensuring student success in methods courses, and encouraging students to take methods courses earlier, may help students succeed in topical psychology courses.

Background: In contrast to the extensive research on socioeconomic gaps in reading and math achievement, little attention has been given to socioeconomic disparities in science skills, particularly during the early years of schooling. This emphasis on later years may be problematic because large socioeconomic disparities emerge in the early years, thus it is crucial to document the size of disparities in science achievement and begin unpacking the range of factors that contribute to these disparities. Additionally, it is crucial to know which components of socioeconomic status are more strongly linked to children's science skills so that resources can be more effectively targeted to address disparities. Using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (N = 9250), this study examines disparities in science achievement across elementary and middle school related to parental income and parental education separating their effects from each other and from a range of confounding factors. Additionally, it considers whether characteristics of children, families, and schools are pathways through which socioeconomic disparities emerge. Results: Results show moderate gaps in science achievement related to both household income and parental education. The primary pathways through which parental education and family income influenced science achievement was through mathematics and reading achievement. For parental education gaps, smaller indirect effects also operated through access to informal science learning opportunities both inside and outside of the home environment. Conclusion: First, this study highlights the importance of considering the contributions of multiple measures of socioeconomic status, instead of a composite. Second, it shows that socioeconomic disparities in science achievement emerge early and that programs and policies aimed at addressing these gaps may need to target children during the early elementary and preschool years. Third, our findings suggest that elementary instructional approaches that simultaneously address science instruction with reading and/or mathematics instruction will likely be especially important for improving overall science outcomes.

Children's spatial activities and parental spatial talk were measured to examine their associations with variability in preschoolers' spatial skills (N = 113, Mage = 4 years, 4 months; 51% female; 80% White, 11% Black, and 9% other). Parents who reported more diversity in daily spatial activities and used longer spatial talk utterances during a spatial activity had children with greater gains in spatial skills from ages 4 to 5 (β =.17 and β =.40, respectively). Importantly, this study is the first to move beyond frequency counts of spatial input and investigate the links among the diversity of children's daily spatial activities, as well as the complexity of parents' spatial language across different contexts, and preschoolers' gains in spatial skills, an important predictor of later STEM success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early school engagement patterns set the stage for short- and long-term academic behaviors and progress, and low engagement at school entry can give rise to dysfunctional school behavior and underachievement in later years. Relationships with parents and teachers provide a foundation upon which children develop the skills and behaviors that are critical for engagement in early elementary school. However, the cross-contextual and transactional processes by which these relationships are associated with engagement in early elementary school remain unclear. This investigation therefore considers how children's relationships with parents prior to school entry are indirectly and interactively associated with 1st grade engagement through teacher-child relationships. It also considers how early cognitive, self-regulatory, and behavioral skills and competencies elicit these relational responses. This investigation drew upon multimethod data from triangulated sources (parents, teachers, and direct observation) available within a large longitudinal study, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Results indicate that neither 54-month or 1st grade parent-child relationships were directly associated with children's engagement in early elementary school. However, 1st grade teacher conflict was problematic for children's developing engagement. In turn, teacher conflict partially mediated linkages between maternal sensitivity and conflict prior to school entry and engagement in 1st grade. Parental closeness and sensitivity also buffered children against negative associations between teacher conflict and engagement. Finally, children's early skills and competencies at 36 months elicited relational processes that were indirectly associated with engagement. Conceptual, theoretical, and methodological challenges are also discussed.