The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) is a longitudinal survey that tracked students who entered kindergarten in 1998. These students were interviewed during kindergarten and subsequently in the first, third, fifth, and eighth grades.

Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K)

- High school sophomores in 2002 with reinterviews in 2004. 


Education Longitudinal Study (ELS)

- Measured by Item Response Theory (IRT) 
- Scores derived from standardized tests of Math and Reading.

Cognitive Ability

The study combines data from two nationally representative cohort longitudinal surveys to compare Asian American and white students in their educational trajectories from kindergarten through high school. 
- Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K) 
- Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) 

University of Connecticut

Explain the superior academic achievement of Asian Americans over whites.  

Achievement Gap: Cultural Differences between Asian Americans and Whites

The findings show that greater academic effort such as attentiveness and work ethic contributes most in Asian-American's advantage in academic achievements. 

Explaining the Asian-American Advantage in Education

More evidences show that Academic Achievements is associated with "noncognitive skills" , "self-control" and "motivation processes". Asian-American parents engage more in parenting practice to promote students' academic achievement- they have higher expectation and are more authoritarian, 

(3) Academic Efforts (Attentiveness and Work Ethic)

Asian-American tending to live in more stable, well educated two-parent families plays partial role of Achievement gap. Moreover, Asian-Americans are not equally gaining benefits form family SES. 

(1)  Socio-demographic Characteristics

Data and Methods

Hsin, A., & Xie, Y. (2014). Explaining Asian Americans' academic advantage over whites. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8416-8421. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1406402111

Explaining Asian Americans' academic advantage over whites.

Research indicates that differences in cognitive ability do not explain the academic achievement gap between Asian American and White students. Although Asian Americans may demonstrate a slight cognitive advantage at an early age, this difference diminishes by school age and cannot account for their growing academic advantage over time.

Role of Cognitive Ability in the Asian-White Achievement Gap

At school entry, Asian American and White students show no significant difference in academic achievement. The Asian American advantage grows across grades, becomes significant by fifth grade, and peaks in tenth grade.

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