Page 187 - Second language development of newly arrived migrant kindergarteners - Frederike Groothoff

The influence of the school learning environment 187 Age and NDW scores differs per percentage of time spent in Language Activities. However, for the interpretation this interaction effect a word of caution is warranted as the standard errors in the last model appeared to be large. Therefore, we are not sure about the specific values for each parameter (See Table 6.7 in Appendix 6 with the estimated parameters). Since the fixed main effect of Language Activities is not significant we can only say that the influence of Language Activities is larger for older pupils than for younger pupils. We do however refrain from plotting the model in a graph because this would be difficult to interpret. A larger sample is necessary to confirm the effect. A likelihood ratio test showed that the main effect of Language Situations with Peers did not contribute significantly to the fit of the model to the observed data (NDWVIII). However, the interaction between Age and Language Situations with Peers (ΔΧ2 (NDWIX) = 4.11; df = 1; p = .04; see Table 8.11) did improve the model significantly. Table 8.11: Fit of Different Polynomials (-2LL) for Changes in NDW score (162 cases) with the Addition of Language Situation with Peers (LanSitPeer) as Explanatory Variable. Comparison -2LL Models ΔΧ2 Δdf p 2.46 1 .12ns 4.11 1 .04 Model NDWII: β0ijcons + β1Age1ij 1242.85 NDWVIII: NDWII + β2LanSitPeerij NDWIX: NDWVIII + β3Age*LanSitPeerij 1240.38 NDWII vs NDWVIII 1236.28 NDWVIII vs NDWIX There was an interaction effect of Language Situations with Peers, although the fixed main effect of Language Situations with Peers was not significant. This means that the relation between Age and NDW scores differs due to the percentages of Language Situations with Peers (see Table 6.7 in Appendix 6 for the estimated parameters). However, for the interpretation this interaction effect a word of caution is warranted as the standard errors in the last model appeared to be large. Therefore, we are not sure about the specific values for each parameter (See Table 6.7 in Appendix 6 with the estimated parameters). Since the fixed main effect of Language Situations with Peers is not significant we can only say that the influence of Language Situations with Peers is larger for older pupils than for younger pupils. We do however refrain from plotting the model in a graph because this would be difficult to interpret. A larger sample is necessary to confirm the effect. The addition of the percentage of time spent in Peer Interaction improved the growth model of the NDW (ΔΧ2 (NDWXIV) = 3.87; df = 1; p = .05; see Table 8.12): the higher the percentage of time spent in Peer Interaction, the higher the NDW. An interaction between Age and percentage of time spent in Peer Interaction was not found (NDWXV).