MODELING THE MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT OF ASIAN-AMERICAN ELEMENTARY STUDENTS

An examination is conducted of potential factors underlying the mathem atics achievement of 60 fourth, 57 fifth, and 41 sixth grade Asian-Ame rican students attending public school in California. Specifically, st ructural equation modeling is used to evaluate hypothesized relationsh ips among several constructs (Efficiency of Elementary Cognitive Proce sses, Working Memory Capacity, Reasoning Ability, Arithmetic Productio n, and Arithmetic Verification Speed), with particular interest direct ed toward these constructs' ability to predict the Mathematics Achieve ment construct. The final structural model has an excellent fit to the observed variances and covariances and accounts for over three-fourth s of the variability in the Mathematics Achievement construct (with Re asoning Ability being the largest explanatory construct included in th e model). The predictive importance of all constructs within this gene rally high-achieving sample is discussed in the context of Ackerman's (1988, 1989) theory of skill acquisition.