Early Childhood Assessment Why, What, and How (2008) / Chapter Skim
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9 Implementation of Early Childhood Assessments
9 Implementation of Early Childhood Assessments
Pages 281-298
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From page 281... ...
These issues may be particularly salient when early childhood assessments are implemented on a broad scale -- for example, when assessments are carried out focusing on a population of children or of early childhood programs. The purpose of this chapter is to summarize the emerging evidence on implementation issues in conducting early child 281
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From page 282... ...
Relative to the substantial body of work looking at the reliability and validity of specific early childhood assessments, there is much more limited research on issues of implementation. While summarizing available evidence, this chapter also identifies areas in which future research could contribute to the understanding of implementation issues in early childhood assessment.
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From page 283... ...
similarly notes that while careful attention needs to be paid to standardization in the implementation of early childhood assessments when the goal is evaluation research, there is greater flexibility in administration when the goal is screening. For example, for screening purposes it may be warranted to repeat the administration of an item if this helps to be certain of the child's best possible performance.
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From page 284... ...
reports that in the representative sample of Head Start programs studied to document implementation of the NRS, nearly all programs had informed parents that their children would be participating in the assessments. However, there was ambiguity as to whether informed consent was needed.
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From page 285... ...
. In the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Study, for example, the certification process included videotaping interviewers administering the adaptation of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development developed for this study.
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From page 286... ...
note that there is always a p ossibility that early childhood assessments may be used for high-stakes purposes even when that was not the original intent of data collection. For example, data collected for tracking and monitoring of the overall functioning of a program may be used to make decisions about the progress of individual children or teachers.
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From page 287... ...
In the small but representative sample of Head Start programs in which implementation of the NRS was studied, teachers were used as assessors in 60 percent of programs. Furthermore, teachers were often permitted to assess the children in their own classes (this was reported in 75 percent of programs that used teachers as assessors)
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From page 288... ...
. Efforts have been made to develop abbreviated versions of assessments, such as the short form of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development developed for the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, in order to minimize burden (Spier et al., 2004)
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From page 289... ...
. While the FACES early childhood assessments and the assessments carried out for the Head Start Impact Study required about 20 minutes to administer, and the NRS took approximately 15 minutes, the PCER assessment battery was substantially longer, requiring about 60 minutes.
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From page 290... ...
. The researchers note that because the Woodcock-Johnson assessments were intended to assist in determining if individual children needed special services, care was taken to build in conservative rules regarding when a child could no longer respond correctly, requiring six incorrect responses as well as going to the bottom of the items on a particular easel.
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From page 291... ...
Administration for Children Who Are Learning English Multiple implementation issues arise in administering early childhood assessments to children who are learning English. These include the order of assessments if they will be carried out in two languages; length and potential burden to the children of receiving the assessment in two languages; the availability of skilled bilingual assessors; and the adequacy of training for conducting assessments in two languages.
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From page 292... ...
The availability of new approaches both to screening and to administration of assessments to children who are learning English will help make it possible to select procedures that are in alignment with the underlying purpose. Thus, for example, new language routing procedures have been developed for the First Five LA Universal Preschool Child Outcomes Study, a study that needed to address the challenge of having many children in the study population learning English with a range of different home languages (Mathematica Policy Research, 2007)
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From page 293... ...
The important point to note here is that the range of options for routing and of approaches to assessment for children learning English is expanding and will enable better matching with the underlying purpose of assessment. Order of Administration Questions about the order of administration of assessments for children learning English arose in the initial year of the NRS and resulted in a change in practice (Mathematica Policy Research, 2006)
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From page 294... ...
There is a need for systematic study of whether scores for young children learning English vary according to order of administration of home language and E nglish versions of assessments. Length of Administration The NRS implementation study found that administration of the Spanish assessment took several minutes longer than the E nglish assessment (18.6 compared with 15.8 minutes)
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From page 295... ...
." In addition, 17 percent of the programs in the study sample administering the assessment in Spanish indicated that there was a problem with finding certified trainers who could provide training on the Spanish version of the assessment. Overall, while 84 percent of the observed English language administrations of the NRS protocol achieved a certification score of 85 percent of higher and would have been certified, the portion who attained or surpassed the certification criterion for observed Spanish language administrations was 78 percent.
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From page 296... ...
Some direct observations of assessments carried out as part of the study indicated that children who could have been exempted were nonetheless being assessed. These findings suggest that in implementing a system of early childhood assessments, it is a high priority to articulate clearly the decision rules for including children with disabilities in the assessments as well as to provide appropriate training for assessors on the use of accommodations.
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From page 297... ...
Direct examination of the costs of purchasing material, conducting training, and implementing early childhood assessments would be extremely valuable. Some pertinent findings come from program directors participating in the NRS who reported their perceptions of the costs of implementation (Mathematica Policy Research, 2006)
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From page 298... ...
However, such issues as clear communication of the purpose of the assessments, consistent practices regarding communication with parents and obtaining informed consent, training of assessors, circumstances of administration to children, appropriate training and assessment practice for children learning English as well as children with disabilities, and communication of results to programs are important whether the assessments occur only within specific programs or at a broader level, such as across a state or for a national program. There is a clear need for research focusing explicitly on such issues as how child performance may vary as a function of variations in the length of assessment, familiarity of the assessor, and procedures for assessing children who are learning English.
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