Methods to handle ordered-categorical indicators in latent variable interactions have been developed, yet they have not been widely applied. This article compares the performance of two popular latent variable interaction modeling approaches in handling ordered-categorical indicators: unconstrained product indicator (UPI) and latent moderated…

This study examined whether social competence at the time of entrance to elementary school predicted school adjustment two years later. The sample consisted of 389 children followed from the 1st to the 3rd grade in Lithuanian urban schools. In the 3rd-grade school adjustment was measured by assessing popularity in class, student-teacher…

In this study, the researcher examined the direct and indirect effects of student-teacher relationship, students' social skills, and behavioral orientation on students' academic competency in Turkish first-grade educational settings. For most Turkish children, the entry into first grade is their first formal schooling experience. Understanding how…

Past research on school-level factors that predict children's development has focused largely on associations between a limited number of characteristics, such as school size and school resources, and children's academic achievement. Few studies take a more comprehensive look at the measurement of school climate or examine its relationship to…