Protective mechanisms that moderate academic risk levels in young children: HLM applications with the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), kindergarten-first grade data set

This study investigated the extent to which personal, family, and school protective factors moderate socio-demographic risk factors (socio-economic status and ethnic minority status) to explain the likely sources of achievement gaps among varying socio-demographic risk groups. The protective factors examined were selected personal factors (gender and socio-emotional competence), family factors (parent expectation, parent-child closeness, parent's school involvement, and reading activity at home), and school factors (developmentally appropriate practices and teacher qualifications).; Using a nationally drawn representative sample, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K), protective mechanisms were investigated with a series of two-level hierarchical linear models (HLM), with a particular focus on interactions of protective factors with risk factors on children's achievement in early school years.; At the student level, significant main effects of protective factors were found with socio-emotional competence, parent expectation, reading activity at home, parent-child closeness, and parent involvement. At the school level, significant main effects of protective factors were found with socio-emotional competence, parent expectation, reading activity at home, parent involvement, and developmentally appropriate practices. Significant interaction effects of SES and minority status were found with gender, parent expectation, reading activity at home, and parent involvement in school. Significant cross-level interactions were found between developmentally appropriate practices and SES of the child and between teacher qualifications and gender. An examination of the patterns of moderating effects suggest that some protective factors may widen, rather than narrow gaps on kindergarten and first grade achievement in children identified by different levels of SES and minority status. The results also imply that developmentally appropriate school practices designed to enhance early school achievement may achieve better results when they target specific risk populations.