This article synthesizes findings from an international virtual conference, funded by the United States National Science Foundation, focused on the home mathematics environment (HME). In light of inconsistencies and gaps in research investigating relations between the HME and children’s outcomes, the purpose of the conference was to discuss actionable steps and considerations for future work. The conference was composed of international researchers with a wide range of expertise and backgrounds. Presentations and discussions during the conference centered broadly on the need to better operationalize and measure the HME as a construct—focusing on issues related to child, family, and community factors, country and cultural factors, and the cognitive and affective characteristics of caregivers and children. Results of the conference and a subsequent writing workshop include a synthesis of core questions and key considerations for the field of research on the HME. Findings highlight the need for the field at large to use multi-method measurement approaches to capture nuances in the HME, and to do so with increased international and interdisciplinary collaboration, open science practices, and communication among scholars.

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Children begin pre-school with varying levels of school readiness. Those children who enter pre-school with better foundational mathematics skills are more likely to succeed in school than those who do not. This initial variation in early mathematics suggests that experiences outside of the school setting, namely the home environment, may support learning and development. This study aims to systematically develop a comprehensive home mathematics environment questionnaire that reliably assesses the experiences of pre-school children (i.e., 3–5-year-olds) following recent recognised scale development and validation methods. Four studies were used to develop and validate the Pre-school Home Mathematics Questionnaire (PHMQ). Study 1 focused on 1) item generation through individual, in-depth interviews with parents of young children and 2) identifying previous questions from other home mathematics environment (HME) questionnaires to be incorporated into the PHMQ. Study 2 involved questionnaire refinement and was used to assess the psychometric properties of the new measure while addressing construct validity (i.e., factor structure and scale score reliability). Study 3 assessed content and criterion validity of the scale. Finally, Study 4 focused on construct validity through confirmatory factor analysis. Overall, the four studies demonstrate construct, content, and criterion validity. Hence, the newly developed PHMQ satisfies the American Psychological Association (APA) standards for psychometric adequacy.