The development of self-regulation is critical for children’s positive interactions with others and successful adjustment to school. Using their self-regulation skills, children can adapt their temperamental, emotional, and behavioral reactions to environmental stimuli. Greater self-regulation is advantageous in the classroom, as more regulated children have an easier time with basic behavioral expectations, and are more likely to persist with difficult tasks, work efficiently, and pay attention to instructions. INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament (INSIGHTS) is a temperament-based intervention that improves kindergarten and first-grade children’s social-emotional development and academic learning. In the current study, we examined the effects of INSIGHTS on rural Midwestern children’s self-regulation development (i.e., attention, inhibitory control), compared to control classrooms. In addition, we explored the effects of children’s baseline self-regulation and the effects of the intervention on children’s developmental trajectories. Students (N = 147) from 61 classrooms were randomly assigned to INSIGHTS or control conditions by school. Children’s self-regulation skills whereas examined at four different times. Multiple regression models were fit, and results suggest that INSIGHTS participants exhibited greater self-regulation at Time 4 as compared to the control group. Additionally, latent growth curve models were used to model linear growth. Results suggest that INSIGHTS participants experienced increased growth rates for attention, inhibitory control, and sustained attention compared to the control group. Our study provides evidence for the positive effects of a social-emotional classroom intervention on the developmental trajectory of children’s self-regulation.

Dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs; Reye, 2004) are a promising tool for modeling student proficiency under rich measurement scenarios (Reichenberg, 2018). These scenarios often present assessment conditions far more complex than what is seen with more traditional assessments and require assessment arguments and psychometric models capable of integrating those complexities. Unfortunately, DBNs remain understudied and their psychometric properties relatively unknown. The current work aimed at exploring the properties of DBNs under a variety of realistic psychometric conditions. A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted in order to evaluate parameter recovery for DBNs using maximum likelihood estimation. Manipulated factors included sample size, measurement quality, test length, the number of measurement occasions. Results suggested that measurement quality has the most prominent impact on estimation quality with more distinct performance categories yielding better estimation. From a practical perspective, parameter recovery appeared to be sufficient with samples as low as N = 400 as long as measurement quality was not poor and at least three items were present at each measurement occasion. Tests consisting of only a single item required exceptional measurement quality in order to adequately recover model parameters.

This study examined life satisfaction of former gifted students who graduated from a gifted program in Vietnam 10 years ago. The authors surveyed adults in their mid- to late-20s to discover whether being identified as gifted during their high school years impacted their quality of life as adults. The research instrument that was used for this study was Flanagan’s Quality of Life Scale (QoLS) translated into Vietnamese. The findings indicated that former gifted students achieved a high satisfaction of their life, and consistently across five domains: Physical and Material Well-being, Relations with other People, Social, Community, and Civic Activities, Personal Development and Fulfillment, and Recreation. There were no significant differences in terms of STEM and non-STEM professionals as well as gender. Implications of the cross-cultural validity of the QoLS and other QoL instruments used in a Vietnamese-speaking population are also discussed.

The authors wish to make the following correction to this paper [...]

Children’s relationships with teachers in kindergarten are crucial for academic and social success. Research shows that teacher–child relationships are predicated, in part, on children’s temperament. The “INSIGHTS into Children’s Temperament” intervention was intended to improve children’s and teachers’ understanding of their and others’ temperament, and has been shown to improve children’s social skills and self-regulation in urban, under-resourced schools. The current study is part of a replication of the effects of INSIGHTS with a sample in rural schools. The purpose was to test the effectiveness of INSIGHTS for promoting positive relationships between teachers and children in kindergarten. Two cohorts of kindergarten students (N = 127) and teachers (N = 30) were randomized into INSIGHTS or control conditions by school. Teachers reported on the quality of the teacher–child relationship before and after the INSIGHTS intervention (Time 1 and 2) using the Student–Teacher Relationship Scale: Short Form and provided a rating of children’s temperament with the Teacher School-Age Temperament Inventory at Time 1. Data were analyzed with hierarchical linear modeling. Two significant findings emerged. First, INSIGHTS promoted more closeness between teachers and children, regardless of temperament. Second, the INSIGHTS intervention was protective against the development of conflictual teacher–child relationships for children with negative reactivity.

This study examined within-year mathematics gains in the context of students’ education status and teachers’ opportunity-to-learn (OTL) performance for 60 general education teachers and 219 students with and without disabilities. Multilevel analyses did not support teachers’ OTL performance as a statistically significant predictor of model slope or intercept. Effect sizes for the Level-2 intercept variance suggested that OTL performance has some utility in explaining variations in mean initial achievement level between teachers. Contingency tables for a subsample of teachers indicated that higher OTL performance resulted in greater achievement gain irrespective of education status with greater gain for students with disabilities.

The U.S. government has become increasingly focused on school climate, as recently evidenced by its inclusion as an accountability indicator in the Every Student Succeeds Act. Yet, there remains considerable variability in both conceptualizing and measuring school climate. To better inform the research and practice related to school climate and its measurement, we leveraged item response theory (IRT), a commonly used psychometric approach for the design of achievement assessments, to create a parsimonious measure of school climate that operates across varying individual characteristics. Students ( n = 69,513) in 111 secondary schools completed a school climate assessment focused on three domains of climate (i.e., safety, engagement, and environment), as defined by the U.S. Department of Education. Item and test characteristics were estimated using the mirt package in R using unidimensional IRT. Analyses revealed measurement difficulties that resulted in a greater ability to assess less favorable perspectives on school climate. Differential item functioning analyses indicated measurement differences based on student academic success. These findings support the development of a broad measure of school climate but also highlight the importance of work to ensure precision in measuring school climate, particularly when considering use as an accountability measure.

As the popularity of rich assessment scenarios increases so must the availability of psychometric models capable of handling the resulting data. Dynamic Bayesian networks (DBNs) offer a fast, flexible option for characterizing student ability across time under psychometrically complex conditions. In this article, a brief introduction to DBNs is offered, followed by a review of the existing literature on the use of DBNs in educational and psychological measurement with a focus on methodological investigations and novel applications that may provide guidance for practitioners wishing to deploy these models. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions for research in the field.

Two models can be nonequivalent, but fit very similarly across a wide range of data sets. These near-equivalent models, like equivalent models, should be considered rival explanations for results of a study if they represent plausible explanations for the phenomenon of interest. Prior to conducting a study, researchers should evaluate plausible models that are alternatives to those hypothesized to evaluate whether they are near-equivalent or equivalent and, in so doing, address the adequacy of the study's methodology. To assess the extent to which alternative models for a study are empirically distinguishable, we propose 5 indexes that quantify the degree of similarity in fit between 2 models across a specified universe of data sets. These indexes compare either the maximum likelihood fit function values or the residual covariance matrices of models. Illustrations are provided to support interpretations of these similarity indexes.

Relations between children's (n = 213) mother-reported effortful control components (attention focusing, attention shifting, inhibitory control at 42 months; activational control at 72 months) and mother-reported shyness trajectories across 42, 54, 72, and 84 months of age were examined. In growth models, shyness decreased. Inhibitory control and attention shifting predicted higher levels and lower levels of shyness at 42 months (the intercept), respectively. Inhibitory control negatively, and attention shifting positively, predicted the shyness slope. Children with higher inhibitory control had relatively more rapid decreases in shyness. Children with higher attention shifting had relatively slower decreases in shyness. Activational control was negatively correlated with the shyness intercept. Effortful control components should be examined separately, rather than in combination, in relation to shyness in the future. If results are replicated, it may suggest that fostering attention shifting and activational control development helps prevent, or maintain low levels of, shyness during childhood.