Examination of school readiness constructs in Tanzania: Psychometric evaluation of the MELQO scales

Raikes, Abbie; Koziol, Natalie A.; Janus, Magdalena; Platas, Linda M.; Weatherholt, Tara; Smeby, Anna; Sayre, Rebecca Kraft

doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2019.02.003

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…We developed and adapted the battery of child tests in cooperation with the researchers of the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes project (MELQO) (UNESCO et al, ) and the local survey firm. The MELQO tools were designed to provide a starting point for national‐level adaptation of global measures of child development (see UNESCO et al, , for an overview) and have demonstrated adequate validity (Raikes et al, ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Joint roles of parenting and nutritional status for child development: Evidence from rural Cambodia

Berkes

Raikes

Bouguen

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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Substantial work has demonstrated that early nutrition and home environments, including the degree to which children receive cognitive stimulation and emotional support from parents, play a profound role in influencing early childhood development. Yet, less work has documented the joint influences of parenting and nutritional status on child development among children in the preschool years living in low‐income countries. Using panel data from 2016 to 2017 on the parenting, nutritional status, and early developmental outcomes (executive function, language, early numeracy, and socioemotional problems) of 6,508 Cambodian children ages 3–5 years, our findings demonstrate that inequities in early development associated with family wealth are evident at age 3 and increase among children ages 4 and 5 years. Using hierarchical regression analysis, a significant share of these inequalities is explained by differences in parenting and early nutritional status, measured by stunting. Better‐educated parents engage in more stimulating and supportive parenting practices. However, the positive association between parenting and language and early numeracy outcomes is 35–54% stronger for non‐stunted children, and parental activities explain only about 8–14% of the cognitive gap between the lowest and highest wealth quintiles. The results highlight the need for additional research outlining interactions between environmental factors that link family wealth and child development.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The child assessment includes different tests for the domains of language development, early numeracy, and executive function. Most of the child tests are based on the MELQO toolkit (see UNESCO et al, , for a description of the measures of development process, and Raikes et al, , for evidence of validity).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joint roles of parenting and nutritional status for child development: Evidence from rural Cambodia

Berkes

Raikes

Bouguen

et al. 2019

Developmental Science

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“…This questionnaire is administered to the child's primary caregiver at home ( 16 , 17 ). Trained enumerators present the standardized questions to caregivers who report whether their child exhibits specific behaviors; caregivers can also respond that they do not know the answer to a particular question.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There have been various global efforts to promote measurement of children's development in the preschool years. These include the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) project ( 16 , 17 ), early Human Capability Index [eHCI; ( 18 )], East Asia-Pacific Early Child Development Scales [EAP-ECDS; ( 19 )], Regional Project on Child Development Indicators [PRIDI; ( 20 )], and the International Development and Early Learning Assessment [IDELA; ( 21 )].There has been an important emphasis within these initiatives on local applicability and relevance, and this should rightly be prioritized to ensure the resulting data are meaningful and useful to governments and local stakeholders. There also have been investigations into the cross-context comparability of the data generated by specific tools [for example, ( 18 , 22 )].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Early Childhood Development Among 4–6 Year Olds: The Identification of Psychometrically Robust Items Across Diverse Contexts

Pushparatnam

Luna-Bazaldúa

Holla

et al. 2021

Front. Public Health

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The last 15 years have seen an explosion of measurement tools for assessing the development of young children in low- and middle- income countries. This paper builds on and contributes to that literature by identifying a core set of caregiver-report items and a core set of direct assessment items that measure key developmental domains for children aged 4–6 (48–83 months) and that demonstrate adequate psychometric properties across diverse contexts, the first in this age group to the authors' knowledge. Data were harmonized from previous early childhood measurement efforts in 12 countries that all used the same base measurement tool. Data analyses yielded 20 caregiver report items and 84 child direct assessment items (grouped into 16 tasks) that show strong item-level statistics across countries and that cover the domains of early literacy, early numeracy, executive functioning, and social-emotional competencies. Next steps include adding data and items from other measurement tools to the same analytical framework and field testing across a number of contexts and early childhood measurement efforts. The vision is for the resulting core sets of items, along with guidance on data collection, management, and analysis, to serve as global public goods so that they can (i) present a starting point for linking across different early childhood measurement tools for children aged 4–6; (ii) increase quality across measurement efforts; and (iii) facilitate the scale up of early childhood measurement. When supplemented with items that capture local contexts and their measurement needs, these core sets of items should help to advance understanding of universal and context-specific factors that underlie child development and thus help policymakers make decisions that ensure children receive the quality early childhood care and education they need in order to reach their full potential.

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“…The consideration of emotional social maturity is an important aspect of school readiness (An & Xie, 2018;Wellisch, 2019). The social-emotional dimension includes self-regulation (An & Xie, 2018;Blair & Raver, 2015;Raikes, et al, 2019;Setiawati et al, 2017) interpersonal interactions with peers (Booth et al, 2019;Blair & Raver. , 2015;Setiawati et al, 2017), motivation, independence (Niklas, et al, 2018;Setiawati et al, 2017), cooperation and class adaptation (Setiawati et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

School readiness assessment: Study of early childhood educator experience

Putranta¹

2021

ilkonline

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The physical and psychological readiness of children will affect the transition phase of children entering more formal education. Increasing children's' school readiness is one the most important aims of quality early childhood education. This research aims to explore the experiences of early childhood educators in assessing the level of readiness of children entering primary education. This research is qualitative research using a phenomenological approach. Data was collected through focus group discussions (FGDs) involving 20 early childhood educators who covered kindergarten, RA, and PAUD in Cilacap, Central Java, Indonesia. The data analysis technique was carried out by applying the Miles and Huberman model. The results showed the concept of school readiness has been widely recognized by early childhood educators and colored the process of early childhood learning. Educators' perceptions of the dimensions of school readiness are based on the achievements of children's development, which include moral and religious values, physical-motor, cognitive, language, social-emotional, and art. The assessment of the child's developmental achievements is carried out formative with most using performance assessments. The plural assessment rubric is used as an observation instrument for the child's performance.

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Examination of school readiness constructs in Tanzania: Psychometric evaluation of the MELQO scales

Cited by 22 publications

References 27 publications

Joint roles of parenting and nutritional status for child development: Evidence from rural Cambodia

Joint roles of parenting and nutritional status for child development: Evidence from rural Cambodia

Measuring Early Childhood Development Among 4–6 Year Olds: The Identification of Psychometrically Robust Items Across Diverse Contexts

School readiness assessment: Study of early childhood educator experience

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