Latent Growth Model

Instruction: (This study is to investigate whether a child participated in Head start program before kindergarten or not would affect children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior (teacher reported behavior problem) longitudinally, and the age of child who started head start program would affect children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior longitudinally)

Please see file named outline, variables and other resources.

1. title: Head Start Program and the trajectory of children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior problems: A latent growth model analysis
2. Method
   1. Datasets and Participants
      1. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K:1998) data set followed a nationally representative sample of children who were in kindergarten in fall 1998 and who continued to be followed to their early school years (kindergarten through Grade 5). The study was conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) within the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. This data was merged with the ECLS-K Base Year Head Start data which contains data that were collected to verify the participation of children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 sample who were identified by their parents and/or schools as having attended Head Start the year prior to kindergarten. First, it was determined whether the program that was identified was a Head Start program. Second, it was determined whether the child attended the program.
      2. The current analyses used data collected during fall and spring of both kindergarten and first grade. The primary outcome, children’s internalizing and externalizing behavior was measured with direct assessments in fall and spring of each year. The analytic sample is restricted to English-speaking children; the # children who did not pass a language screener and whose home language was not English were not included in the analyses.

1. Behavior Problems
2. Head Start program

• Age of Starting Head Start Program (Start age)

1. Covariates (control variables)

1. Analytical Approach
   1. Latent Growth model.