The significance of text in the teaching of reading in the early years

The goal of this study was (1) to investigate the development of decoding (efficiency), reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling during the elementary school years and (2) to determine the differences between poor, average and good performers with regard to the development of these skills. Twice each year two standardized tests for each skill were administered. For two successive periods, one of the tests for each skill was the same. To describe the development in terms of a latent variable evolving across grades, the structured-means version of the structural equation model was used. The growth was expressed in terms of effect size. With respect to the first question, clear seasonal effects were found for reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling, while the seasonal effect for decoding efficiency was restricted to the early grades. Progress tended to be greater from fall to spring than from spring to fall. For decoding efficiency, and to a lesser degree for vocabulary and spelling, growth showed a declining trend across grades. For reading comprehension, the progress in grade 2 was lower than the progress in grade 3, but progress was declining across higher grades. With respect to the second question, it appeared that initially low performers on reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling tended to show a greater progress, especially in periods where the largest amount of instruction was given. Although it was found that the low, medium and high ability groups remain in the same order, as far as their means are concerned, these findings do not confirm the existence of a Matthew effect for reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling. For decoding efficiency no clear differential effect could be found: the gap between the poor and good performers did not widen over time for this skill

Spatial Reference in Momu

Spatial reference - how we communicate notions such as location, motion and direction - is an important area of current research. Recent studies involving detailed analysis of geographically and typologically diverse languages have uncovered extensive and unexpected variation in the means languages utilise to encode spatial relations. This thesis aims to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about the cross-linguistic representation of the spatial domain. It is an analysis of fieldwork data which was collected for a preliminary investigation into the spatial reference system of Momu (also known as Fas), a Kwomtari language spoken in the West Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. The analysis focuses on descriptions of static location, motion and the use of frames of reference. In Momu, all basic locative, directional and motion verbs are deictically anchored, such that there are few expressions of spatial reference that do not obligatorily require deictic specification. This thesis demonstrates the particular attention Momu pays to the specification of deixis across all major sub-areas of the spatial domain.Australian Research Council [William Foley, Chief Investigator

Sommetjes leuk! Interview met Fred Steutel

Contains fulltext : 56287.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Volgen in continue tijd en aan de hand van geïndividualiseerde verwachte ontwikkelingscurven

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Systeem-methodologie in sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek

Contains fulltext : mmubn000001_025230395.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Promotor : M. AlbinskiXV, 456 p

Continuous Time Modeling of the Cross-Lagged Panel Design

Item does not contain fulltextSince Newton (1642-1727) continuous time modeling by means of differential equations is the standard approach of dynamic phenomena in natural science. It is argued that most processes in behavioral science also unfold in continuous time and should be analyzed accordingly. After dealing with the essentials of stochastic differential equation modeling of panel data by means of structural equation modeling (SEM) and the exact discrete model (EDM) as well as with the relevance of cross-sectional research for continuous time modeling (Coleman), several paradoxes speci cally related to the cross-lagged panel design in discrete time are addressed and solved in continuous time. These paradoxes have been the cause of a lot of confusion in the interpretation of cross-lagged panel analyses in the literature. Educational research data illustrate and evaluate continuous time modeling of cross-lagged effects by means of different models and methods using SEM

SEM state space modeling of panel data in discrete and continuous time and its relationship to traditional state space modeling

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Continuous time modeling of reciprocal relationships in the cross-lagged panel design

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Comparison of four procedures to estimate the damped linear differential oscillator for panel

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