Multiple Regression Project

The ability to read is one of the most valuable tools that children acquire in elementary school. Children who are strong readers may have more opportunities to be in advanced class, giving them an advantage over other children to succeed as a student, and later, as a professional. Many factors contribute to a child’s reading ability. This project focuses on five factors which are believed to contribute to standardized reading score. The first variable selected is yearly family income, because often children from families with higher incomes have access to more books, and one-on-one time reading with their parents. The next variable used measured for family size, because it is predicted that children from smaller families will have more one-on-one time with a parent to practice reading than children from larger families. Grade composite was measured, because typically students with high grades have better reading scores. Next, the researcher looked at the number of times the student got in trouble, because often students who are removed from the classroom for a period of time and miss out on learning opportunities. Finally, the variable for number of times the student skipped class was used because typically students who skip class are not as interested in school as those who do not skip class, and may not be engaged in reading lessons and activities. Before the data could be analyzed, the researcher formatted the variables so that they would be appropriate to use in multiple regression analysis. The three interval variables, grades composite, family income, and family size were centered. Means were calculated and are displayed in Table 1. The interval variables were centered on the mean, embedding those with mean scores in the constant. The categorical variables measuring how many times the respondent skipped class, and got in trouble were dummy coded. Frequencies were run, and the response that was most frequent was embedded in the constant. As shown in Table 2, “Never” skipping class was the most frequent response. Table 3 displays “Never” as the most frequent response for how many times the respondent got in trouble.
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics

N
Minimum
Maximum
Mean
Std. Deviation
GRADES COMPOSITE
983
.5
4.0
2.970
.7522
YEARLY FAMILY INCOME
962
1
15
9.75
2.614
FAMILY SIZE
997
2
10