Schedule and Presentations 2012
This year’s theme will be “Demographic Diversity and Cognitive Decline.” We will use data from several longitudinal studies of cognitive aging that track cognitive change in different racial/ethnic groups and from diverse demographic backgrounds. Participant samples will come from different regions of the US and this will further enhance the diversity in the data for the conference. Analyses during the conference will test a common hypothesis that demographic factors like race/ethnicity and level of education are independently associated with substantial cross sectional differences in cognitive test scores, and while educational variables will influence rate of decline over time, race/ethnicity will not. The multiple and diverse datasets for this year’s conference will permit a comprehensive test of this hypothesis across a number of minority and non-minority groups, including African Americans, Latino Americans from Mexico and the Caribbean, and non Hispanic Whites. We will also examine variables that are predictive of cognitive decline within ethnic and socioeconomic groups (such as English language fluency and years in the US) as well as variables that have more universal effects across groups.
The overall training goal for the 2012 workshop is to convey concepts and methods relevant to studying measurement equivalence and measurement bias and to comparative studies of determinants of cognitive decline in demographically diverse populations. Specific training areas will include: 1) use of item response theory and other latent variable modeling methods to effectively measure cognition in diverse groups, 2) methods for evaluating measurement invariance and measurement bias, 3) longitudinal analysis methods including random effects mixed model regression analyses and latent growth models, and 4) integrative analysis of data through measurement harmonization and coordinated analysis.
As in the previous conferences, the workshop will be organized around workgroups that will perform analyses related to scientific manuscripts. Our goal will be to substantially complete analyses during the week and then organize the workgroups for further interactions to complete the manuscripts.
Didactic presentations will summarize research on how demographic diversity affects cognition and will cover methods for evaluating measurement invariance, identifying measurement bias, and performing tests of comparative validity. More in depth and sophisticated applications of these methods will occur within the workgroups. Diversity in substantive and methodological expertise of participants will be emphasized so that the conference promotes learning for all participants and establishes an informal network that will enhance research on cognitive changes associated with aging.