Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[tisogai]

I'd like to have the following propositions rephrased into easier English so that I can understand them better.

I'm OK with 4, but the underscored parts are the parts I especially find hard to understand. Please help.

Proposition 1:
Associations between child outcomes and quality of care will be significant with selection factors controlled.

Proposition 2:
There will be domain-specific association between child outcomes and quality.

Proposition 3:
Associations between child outcomes and quality of earlier care will be significant with quality of concurrent care controlled.

Proposition 4:
Quality of care will be related to child outcomes even when the child's earlier abilities are taken into account.

Proposition 5:
There will be a dose-response relation between quality of care and child outcomes.

Is "outcome" here "result" or something? Result of child care??

[bud]

Yes, "outcome" means "result."

1. It means that other factors besides quality of care will be taken into account. Taken into account means statistically controlled (in this context).

2. ?

3. ?

5. I'm not sure, but I think it means the amount of quality care. For example, child A gets quality care three days a week, and child B gets it five days a week.

[CP]

Still reading the tough developmental psychology literature, I guess. Okay: It looks like this is the part of the paper where the authors make predictions about what future research will show, or perhaps they are listing the predictions and hypotheses they had before doing the present study.

Proposition 1: I agree with Bud.

Proposition 2: Predicting that child outcomes (how well they do later) and quality (of child care? of something, anyway) will be determined the domains (probably meaning where the child receives care during the pre-school years).

Proposition 3: If we statistically control for (factor out) the quality of child care right now, we will see a statistically significant (reliable, not necessarily important) covariance between child outcomes and quality of earlier care.

Proposition 4: If we statistically control for (factor out) the individual child's earlier abilities (maybe language acquisition, or musical talent, or whatever they measured), we will see a statistically significant (reliable, not necessarily important) covariance between child outcomes and quality of earlier care.

Proposition 5: A dose-response relationship refers to the effect of taking ever-increasing doses of a medicine or drug on the behavior or well-being or other outcome that the medicine / drug influenced. Usually there is an optimal dose for a particular drug; too little doesn't work; too much had side effects or what not. This prediction is (or apparently is) that you can find a relationship between the two variables, quality of care and child outcomes, such that you can give the optimal amount or type of care to children in the future to get the best outcomes for them.
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You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[tisogai]

Thanks so much, Bud and CP.

Could I ask you a couple of follow-up questions.

Re #3 nd 4, does "control for (factor out)" mean eliminate?

Is "covariance" a mean value between two things?

Re #1, Is statistically controlled(taken into account) taken into consideration??

Thanks again.

[CP]

To control or factor out, or statistically eliminate, or statistically control for, all mean to try to eliminate the influence of one variable on the results to see the effect of the other variables without that influence.

If you are looking at reading ability (the dependent variable), for instance, and you want to see how it is affected by different preschool experiences, but you know that socioeconomic status (SES) has a big effect on reading ability, then you could use sophisticated statistical techniques to artificially control for the influence of SES. If you still find differences among the groups after controlling for SES, you can be more confident that the differences are because of the preschool experiences, not just because of the status of the family.

Covariance refers to two or more variables that seem to mimic each other. Height and weight in children tend to covary together, with taller children being generally heavier, for example.
_________________
You live a new life for every new language you speak. -Czech proverb

[bud]

Yes, statistically controlled = taken into account = taken into consideration.

[tisogai]

Thanks, Bud.
Thanks for the great explanation, CP. I'm gradually getting an understanding of that.

Another question here;

Is "concurrent" you mentioned progressing at the same time, or something similar?? Is that right?

Thanks again.