The early childhood educational field has garnered attention with initiatives to foster skill acquisition in young children prior to kindergarten entry. These initiatives, in conjunction with the rigorous demands of curricular reform and a burgeoning accountability movement, invoke questions regarding the adequacy of the instruments used to assess young children and the inherent difficulties in conducting such assessments. Because the effectiveness of education relies critically on the sound diagnoses of children's readiness for learning and the measurement of their subsequent progression throughout the schooling process, critical issues in early assessment must be addressed. An examination of past practices was synthesized with recent research to focus awareness on the insufficient content domain, restrictive context, adverse timing and questionable psychometric properties, specifically the inappropriate norms and low predictive validity, of many instruments. Both the implications of and compensatory strategies for each issue are considered.

This study examined the effects of questionnaire item grouping (thematic versus random) and placement of the “don't know” option (before or after the rating scale) on the frequency of nonattitude responses (checking don't know and omission) in rating attitude statements. Response consistency was also evaluated by item grouping. Findings supported the hypothesis that knowledge of an item's theme and of other items related to that theme encouraged attitude responses by reducing the frequency of don't know responses. The authors found no evidence that positioning the don't know option at the end of the rating scale reduced nonattitude responses. Furthermore, thematic grouping enhanced internal consistency reliability for four of six subscales and the total scale.

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