An overview of Markov chain methods for the study of stage-sequential developmental processes

This article presents an overview of quantitative methodologies for the study of stage-sequential development based on extensions of Markov chain modeling. Four methods are presented that exemplify the flexibility of this approach: the manifest Markov model, the latent Markov model, latent transition analysis, and the mixture latent Markov model. A special case of the mixture latent Markov model, the so-called mover-stayer model, is used in this study. Unconditional and conditional models are estimated for the manifest Markov model and the latent Markov model, where the conditional models include a measure of poverty status. Issues of model specification, estimation, and testing using the Mplus software environment are briefly discussed, and the Mplus input syntax is provided. The author applies these 4 methods to a single example of stage-sequential development in reading competency in the early school years, using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Kindergarten Cohort.