Challenges
I chose the article Preschool Antecedents of Mathematics Achievement of Latinos: The Influence of Family Resources, Early Literacy Experiences, and Preschool Attendance (Lopez, Gallimore, Garnier, & Reese, 2007). Lopez et al. explain that early exposure to literacy and numeracy along with the resources of a family are integral in developing a child’s later advanced numeracy skill. The information comes from an eight year longitudinal study on seventy-three Latino families. Lopez et al. did a wonderfully concise job of explaining the statistical concepts they used in the study, which included longitudinal studies, path analysis, and principal component analysis.
My challenges in working through the article came not in reading and understanding the text, but in reading the path model tables used to present some of the information. The information presented in the tables required me to pause and seek out further definitions or explanations of concepts while trying to interpret the charts. When the information was presented in paragraph form it made complete sense to me and I totally understood the study and its findings. When part of the studies data was shifted into math terms and placed into several different styles of charts, I began to be challenged.
Insights
Questions regarding the effects of counseling and psychotherapy are important and such questions range from the general to the particular. The effectiveness of medications for treatment options and the answers to hypothesis and other questions lie in testing and seeking answers. To find such answers we must research the findings. The data collected in its rawest form
