Early Childhood Assessment Why, What, and How (2008) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
11 Guidance on Outcomes and Assessments
11 Guidance on Outcomes and Assessments
Pages 341-376
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From page 341... ...
This is not a new idea, but the committee is convinced that it bears repeating, because it is fundamental to worthwhile assessment. A system of early childhood care and education must have well-articulated goals and objectives, documented in standards, guidelines, and frameworks, that can inform the design and implementation of early care and education programs.
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From page 342... ...
In compliance with our charge, we have also included a section presenting a recommended agenda for research on the assessment of young children, following the detailed guidelines. These guidelines should be useful to anyone contemplating the selection or implementation of an assessment for young children, including medical and educational service providers, classroom practitioners, federal, state, and local governments and private agencies operating or regulating child care and early childhood education programs, and those interested in expanding the knowledge base about child development and the conditions of childhood.
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From page 343... ...
Making decisions about early childhood programs is a purpose for assessment for which an increasing number of children are being assessed lately, and for which even more children are likely to be assessed in the future. These decisions can be the result of a program evaluation or as part of ongoing accountability procedures.
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From page 344... ...
Similarly, with care, classroom quality assessments can be used for purposes of program monitoring, as formative input to guide program decisions, as an outcome in program evaluations, or in order to serve as moderating or mediating variables in predicting child outcomes in research. Nonetheless, not all instruments are appropriate for all purposes, and those selecting an assessment need to review the purposes for which it was designed to determine if it can be appropriately used for their intended purpose.
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From page 345... ...
Ideally, of course, assessment information benefits children by providing information that can be used to inform their caregivers, to improve the quality of their care and education environments, and to identify child risk factors that could be remediated. Particularly in assessing young children, care is needed to ensure that they are not negatively affected (unintentionally frightened or made to feel incompetent)
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From page 346... ...
These distinctions have served science well and are helpful for assessment purposes, but in reality the distinctions among children's skills and behaviors are somewhat artificial and not as clear-cut as the organization of research or assessment tools would suggest. Developmental domains are intertwined, especially in the very young child, making it challenging or even impossible to interpret measures in some domains without also measuring the influence of others.
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From page 347... ...
For the domains of social and emotional development and approaches to learning and for the subdomain of fitness, this is a period of active measures development, including both direct assessment and further work on parent and teacher reports. While important work in these areas is under way, both measures development and consensus about key constructs remain less advanced than for such subdomains as language, literacy, and mathematics.
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From page 348... ...
Domains included when assessing child outcomes and the quality of education programs should be expanded beyond those traditionally emphasized (language, literacy, and
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From page 349... ...
. Selecting and Implementing Assessments Rationale A wide array of instruments and approaches can be used to collect information about young children and their environments, ranging from interviews with caregivers to ratings of child performance by caregivers or observers, to observations in naturally occurring or structured settings to direct assessments.
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From page 350... ...
Those charged with selecting assessment instruments need to carefully review the information provided in the instrument's technical manual. Although test publishers may provide extensive psychometric information about their products, additional evidence beyond that provided in manuals should also be considered in instrument selection.
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From page 351... ...
Observational measures provide information about real-world functioning, but they have to be contextualized in an understanding of how typical the observed behavior is. Direct assessments often provide information about norms or criteria for performance, but they can generate misleading results if the child being tested is shy, unfamiliar with the tester, or resistant to direction.
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From page 352... ...
( I-4) Pediatricians, primary medical caregivers, and other quali fied personnel should screen for maternal or family factors that might impact child outcomes -- child abuse risk, mater nal depression, and other factors known to relate to later outcomes.
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From page 353... ...
( I-10) Assessment tools should be constructed and selected for use in accordance with principles of universal design, so they will be accessible to, valid, and appropriate for the greatest possible number of children.
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From page 354... ...
At least some partially integrated systems exist and constitute models for how to design assessment systems -- in New Zealand and in New Jersey, for example -- but there are many barriers to doing this universally. The knowledge and resources are available to do a better job of integrating information from a range of early child outcome and program assessments into efforts to improve the quality of services to young children.
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From page 355... ...
6. Careful decisions about how to balance standardizing the administration of direct assessments with threats to optimal test performance because of unnaturalness or nonresponsiveness.
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From page 356... ...
Information about program effectiveness should be contextualized in an understanding of the resources and supports available. Decisions about teacher effectiveness cannot be validly based on information from child performance or even from direct observation without also knowing about access to resources, to professional development, to mental health consultation, to supervision, and so on.
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From page 357... ...
(b) Assessments: Multiple approaches to documenting child development and learning and reviewing program quality that are of high quality and connect to one another in well defined ways, from which strategic selection can be made depending on specific purposes.
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From page 358... ...
These coherences drive the design of all the subsystems. For example, the development of early learning standards, curriculum, and the design of teaching practices and assessments should be guided by the same framework for understanding what is being attempted in the classroom that informs the training of beginning teachers and the continuing professional development of experienced teachers.
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From page 359... ...
quality rating systems or other program quality information has been considered in conjunction with child measures, (c) the programs have been provided with all the supports needed to improve, and (d)
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From page 360... ...
The relationship between assessment tools and knowledge of child development is highly
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From page 361... ...
With the emergence of more programs for young children and the need for accountability for those resources, assessment will become even more widespread. The quality of the assessment tools must match the various demands being placed on them, and that requires an investment in research on the development of new techniques.
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From page 362... ...
Most direct assessment tools and observations methods are developed conceptually, without sufficient attention to ensuring adequate measurement at all ranges of the scale and for children from diverse backgrounds. Development research is needed on assessments that span a broader age range, ideally from birth to ages 6 or 7.
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From page 363... ...
Computeradaptive assessment could be applicable to both direct and o bservation-based measures. For the Improvement of Screening Research is needed to validate screening tools for the full range of children represented in early childhood programs.
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From page 364... ...
For the Improvement of Observation-Based and Curriculum-Based Child Measures More research is needed in the use of authentic assessment tools for program evaluation and accountability, including consideration of what level of training (and retraining) is necessary to ensure that teachers reliably administer the assessment initially and over time, whether the use of observation-based tools in an accountability system leads to inflated scores or otherwise reduces its usefulness in the classroom, and what level of monitoring and supervision is required to ensure that the assessment is administered consistently.
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From page 365... ...
Research should continue to identify program quality elements that strengthen child outcomes. Use of Assessment Tools and Processes with Special Populations Addressing Bias Little work has been done to address the effect of bias in the
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From page 366... ...
There is a need for ongoing implementation research in the area of professional development and training for assessing young English language learners. This research needs to identify the substance of professional development to improve staff competencies necessary to work as a part of a professional team; inform how staff works with interpreters; guide how to choose and administer appropriate assessment batteries; and train practitioners to develop their competence in second language acquisition, acculturation, and the evaluation of educational interventions.
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From page 367... ...
Research is needed to develop assessment tools normed especially for young English language learners using a bottom-up approach, so that assessment tools, procedures, and constructs assessed are aligned with cultural and linguistic characteristics of ELL children. Children with Special Needs More research is needed on what the various practitioners who assess young children with special needs -- early interventionists, special education teachers, speech therapists, psychologists, etc. -- actually do.
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From page 368... ...
• How familiar are teachers and child care providers with the purpose of a program evaluation or a state accountability system? • How does information need to be packaged to ensure it is understood by program administrators, teachers or child care providers, and parents?
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From page 369... ...
• Health care providers need to be aware of the resources available in the community, such as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part C early intervention and preschool special education programs for children who are in need of additional developmental assessment and services.
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From page 370... ...
• Teachers should work with colleagues and coaches/ professional development personnel/program adminis trators to determine the best ways of sharing information about child performance with primary caregivers, and encourage the program they work in to be systematic about sharing assessment findings with parents. • If the information collected as part of formal assessments (for program evaluation purposes, for example)
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From page 371... ...
• Program administrators should seek information about the psychometric properties of any assessments being used with their children, in particular direct assessments, and exercise caution in using direct results from assessments with low reliability or tests not normed on children like those in their program. • Program administrators should make sure they under stand the meaning of children's scores, what they say both about how children in the program are progressing and whether they are meeting age-based or standards-based expectations.
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From page 372... ...
and assessments that document the progress being made by children in the program. District, State, and Federal Officials with Responsibility for Early Childhood Programs • Officials should ensure the availability of professional development to support program personnel in interpreting and using information from assessments and in selecting or developing formative (classroom- or curriculum-based)
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From page 373... ...
7. areful decisions about how to balance standardizing C the administration of direct assessments with threats to
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From page 374... ...
• Researchers should work to expand the universal design characteristics of extant testing instruments, to make them optimally useful for all children, including those with dis abilities and cultural and language minority children. • Researchers should study the development of linguistic and cultural minority children in order to inform the devel opment of assessments that would adequately reflect their capacities.
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From page 375... ...
These readers are thinking of the value to parents of the procedures for screening infants to identify those who need services. They would cite the value to taxpayers of evaluating early childhood programs to ensure they are of high quality and the value to practitioners, to parents, and to children of having both progress monitoring and formative assessments available to support program improvement.
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From page 376... ...
Rather, it takes the position that assessments can make crucial contributions to the improvement of children's well-being, but only if they are well designed, implemented effectively and in the context of systematic planning, and interpreted and used appropriately. Other wise, assessment of children and programs can have negative consequences for both.
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