Early Childhood Longitudinal Study [United States]: Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, Fifth Grade (ICPSR 4440)

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The ECLS-K employed a multistage probability sample design to select a nationally representative sample of children attending kindergarten in 1998-1999. In the base year, the primary sampling units (PSUs) were geographic areas consisting of counties or groups of counties. The second-stage units were schools within sampled PSUs. The third- and final-stage units were students within schools.

In fifth grade, the sample that was fielded was reduced by excluding certain special groups of children from data collection, and by setting differential sampling rates for movers in different categories. Specifically, children in four groups were not fielded for the fifth grade survey, irrespective of other subsampling procedures that were implemented. They were: (1) children who became ineligible in an earlier round because they died or moved out of the country, (2) children who were subsampled out in previous rounds because they were movers, (3) children whose parents emphatically refused to cooperate (hard refusals), and (4) children eligible for the third grade data collection for whom there were neither first grade nor third grade data. Of the remaining children, those who moved from their original schools during fifth grade or earlier were subsampled for followup. Children whose home language is not English (language minority) continued to be a special domain of analytic interest, and were subsampled at higher rates. Children were subsampled at different rates depending on the longitudinal data available for those children.

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Children and their families, teachers, and schools in the United States.

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The fifth grade (spring) overall completion rates for the child assessment and the parent interview are 83.9 percent and 88.3 percent, respectively.

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2006-06-14

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List of Weights

Each SDA file is set up to use a different weight. Careful consideration should be given to the choice of a weight for a specific analysis since it depends on the type of data analyzed. Each set of weights is appropriate for a different set of data or combination of sets of data.

Weight to be used for analysis ...

• C6C - if the child has completed the assessment data or the child was excluded from direct assessment due to a disability
• C6P - if the child has complete parent interview data
• C6CPTR - if the child has completed the assessment data (or excluded from direct assessment due to a disability) and parent interview data and teacher-level data either from the reading teacher and/or the mathematics/science teacher
• C6CPTM - if the child was sampled to have a child-level questionnaire completed by the mathematics teacher and the child has completed the assessment data (or excluded from direct assessment due to a disability) and parent interview data and teacher-level data either from the reading teacher or the mathematics teacher
• C6CPTS - if the child was sampled to have a child-level questionnaire completed by the science teacher and the child has completed the assessment data (or excluded from direct assessment due to a disability) and parent interview data and teacher-level data either from the reading teacher or the science teacher
• C56C - if assessment data are present for both spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade, or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in both of these rounds of data collection due to a disability
• C56P - if parent interview data are present for both spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade
• C456C - if assessment data are present for spring-first and spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade, or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all of these three rounds of data collection due to a disability
• C456P - if parent interview data are present for spring-first grade and spring-third grade and spring-fifth grade
• C2_6FC - if assessment data are present for four rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (spring-kindergarten, spring-first grade, springthird grade, and spring-fifth grade), or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all four of these rounds of data collection due to a disability
• C2_6FP - if parent interview data are present for four rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (spring-kindergarten, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade)
• C1_6FC - if assessment data are present for five rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (fall-kindergarten, spring-kindergarten, springfirst grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade), or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all five of these rounds of data collection due to a disability
• C1_6FP - if parent interview data are present for five rounds of data collections involving the full sample of children (fall-kindergarten, springkindergarten, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade)
• C1_6SC - if assessment data are present for all six rounds of data collection (fall-kindergarten, spring-kindergarten, fall-first grade, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade), or if the child was excluded from direct assessment in all six rounds of data collection due to a disability
• C1_6SP - if parent interview data are present for all six rounds of data collection (fall-kindergarten, spring-kindergarten, fall-first grade, spring-first grade, spring-third grade, and spring-fifth grade)

Choosing a Weight

Weight C6CW0 is used to estimate child-level characteristics or assessment scores for fifth grade. Examples of such estimates are the percent of children who are male, the percent of children who are API, the percent of children who are 11-years-old at the beginning of the fifth-grade data collection, and the mean reading score of children in the fifth-grade data collection. These weights exist not only for children who were administered a child assessment but also for children who could not be assessed due to a disability. These children were not administered the ECLS-K direct cognitive battery, but their background characteristics such as age, sex, race/ethnicity, and characteristics of their parents, teachers, classrooms, and schools are available from the parent interviews, the teacher questionnaires, the school administrator questionnaire, and the school facilities checklist. The academic and social rating scores from teachers are also available for children with disabilities, regardless of whether they completed the direct child assessment.

C6PW0 is used for child-level estimates associated with data collected through the parent interview. Examples are the percent of children whose mothers are currently employed, the percent of children who are in a particular type of child care, and the percent of children who have a library card. These weights should not be used for estimates solely using direct child assessment data but should be used when analyzing parent and child assessment data together. For example, they should be used when exploring the relationship between home literacy behaviors and children's reading skills.

When analyzing child assessment data in conjunction with teacher data and parent data, one of the three child-parent-teacher weights should be used. C6CPTR0 should be used if only teacher-level data are used without subject-specific child-level data. C6CPTR0 should also be used if teacher-level data are combined with child-level data from the reading teacher questionnaire. However, C6CPTM0 or C6CPTS0 should be used if child-level data from mathematics or science teacher questionnaire (respectively) are included with or without teacher-level data. Weight C6CW0 may be used when analyzing child assessment data in conjunction with teacher-level data alone. In this case, some data may be missing because some teachers did not complete the questionnaire, but these are the most appropriate weights for this type of analysis.

Examples

Here are some examples of how the child-parent-teacher weights may be used. C6CPTR0 is used when child direct assessment and parent data and teacher-level data and/or child-level reading data from teachers are combined in an analysis; for example, in the analysis of the relationship between parent education, teacher education, and children's reading knowledge and skills. If it is the children's mathematics knowledge and skills as reported by the teacher that are analyzed, then C6CPTM0 should be used. Likewise, C6CPTS0 should be used if children's science knowledge and skills as reported by the teacher are combined with direct assessment, parent and teacher-level data. These weights should not be used for estimates using only direct child assessment data or only parent interview data. An example of the use of C6CW0 is in the analysis of the relationship between children's approaches to learning as rated by their teachers and the teacher's type of teaching certification.