Browsing by Author "Hart, Lesley"
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Item Associations between household responsibilities and academic competencies in the context of education accessibility in Zambia(Learning and Individual Differences, 10/1/2013) Reich, Jodi; Hein, Sascha D.; Krivulskaya, Suzanna; Hart, Lesley; Gumkowski, Nina; Grigorenko, Elena L.; The Learning Disabilities ProjectThe relationship between education and socioeconomic status has been demonstrated in studies of the developed and the developing world, yet there are communities in which schooling is either not available to all children or not a preferred activity for all children. In this study, we investigated the differences between children in-school and out-of-school in rural and peri-urban communities of Zambia. As expected, we found that the children in-school performed higher in domains of adaptive behavior and on assessments of academic achievement (i.e., mathematics, reading). Somewhat unexpectedly, however, when controlling for socioeconomic status, home responsibilities (i.e., chores, work) were a positive predictor for the performance of the children out-of-school, but a negative predictor for the children in-school. The relationship between home responsibilities and academic performance may be bidirectional and differential; for example, our findings allow for the hypothesis that for in-school children chores take time away from the studies, but for out-of-school children they provide some limited mathematics exposure.Item English Minority Students in Ghana: How Language of Test Administration and Regional Differences Influence Reading Performance on the Ghanaian Achievement Test(2019-08) Torres, Stephanie; Grigorenko, Elena L.; Hart, Lesley; Kulesz, Paulina A.It is estimated that roughly 40% of the world’s population lacks access to education in their native tongues. The impact of language of instruction and NDLL (nondominant language learner) status on academic achievement has received significant attention, but less attention has been given when considering degree of urbanization of where children reside and go to school; thus, careful consideration should be given to how cultural differences across regions in low- and middle- income countries may affect performance patterns when children are being taught in their non-dominant language. Here we consider the impact of language of test administration and degree of urbanization on reading performance on the Ghanaian Achievement Test (GAT) in a large sample (N = 1,309, Mage = 9.48 years, SD = 2.26; 45.5% Female) of Ghanaian children. Those included in this study are from a survey project carried out by The Education Quality for All (EQUALL) Complimentary Education Program in 2005. All participants completed demographics measures and assessments measuring different competencies such as nonverbal intelligence, language, and reading ability. Negative binomial and zero-inflated Poisson data models revealed that both language of test administration and degree of urbanization were significantly related to reading subskill ability and noted differences in predicted scores between NDLLs and DLLs (dominant language learners). Effects of the degree of urbanization and language of test administration varied by subskill, contrary to what we hypothesized. We expected a fairly linear relationship between all GAT reading subskill scores and degree of urbanization, but in some cases semi-urban local language speakers outperformed both their urban- and rural-dwelling counterparts.