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

Abstract

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.

Measurement for Change: Reflections from innovators' experiences with monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems for Early Childhood Development

“…The paper by Pushparatnam et al ( 32 ) illustrates possibilities and challenges in achieving a different kind of “ bird's-eye view” ( 31 ), through developing an ECD assessment instrument that captures both universal and local context-specific measurement needs, yet remains short and feasible. The team developed a set of statistical criteria “ to identify items that show robust psychometric properties across countries ” [( 32 ), p. 4], and they undertook a step-by-step analytical process to select items from a database from use of MELQO (an international set of assessment tools) ( 33 ) in multiple settings, in the aggregate involving 16,015 caregivers and 24,533 children in 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. The result was a set of 20 items to be assessed through caregiver reports and 84 items for use in direct assessment of children.…”

“…The paper by Mithra et al (31) illustrates the value of the "bird's-eye view" [(31), p. 20] provided by data synthesis across multiple, well-executed systematic reviews (SRs) to guide policy, intervention strategy, and further research. The article synthesized 31 published systematic reviews of interventions to manage anemia in children and adolescents.…”

Analysis on Difficulties of Early Childhood Teachers in Assessing Early Childhood Development

“…Early childhood is a different individual, unique, has its own characteristics, specific growth and development patterns according to their growth and development rate (Varela Londoño et al, 2019;Syafdaningsih, 2020;Owen & Barnes, 2021).In addition, the uniqueness of early childhood is reflected in the characteristics of the six aspects of its development, namely aspects of religious and moral values, motor physics, cognitive, language, socio-emotional, and art(Kemendikbud RI, 2014; Jones et al, 2016;Rhoad-Drogalis et al, 2018;Khatib et al, 2020;Pushparatnam et al, 2021).Therefore, stimulation activities in early childhood education is aim on developing aspects of child development that are abstract and sustainable. Careful procedures and systematic, focused and comprehensive measurement and assessment of the instruments are needed to develop and assess these vital aspects.…”