World Bank Group, Washington, DC, United States.
Front Public Health. 2021 Feb 3;9:569448. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.569448. eCollection 2021.
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.
在过去的 15 年中，出现了大量用于评估中低收入国家幼儿发展的测量工具。本文通过确定一套核心的照顾者报告项目和一套核心的直接评估项目，为该文献做出了贡献，这些项目可衡量 4-6 岁（48-83 个月）儿童的关键发展领域，并且在不同的背景下都表现出足够的心理测量学特性，据作者所知，这是该年龄段的首次尝试。数据来自 12 个国家以前的幼儿测量工作，这些国家都使用相同的基础测量工具进行了调和。数据分析得出了 20 项照顾者报告项目和 84 项儿童直接评估项目（分为 16 项任务），这些项目在各国之间表现出很强的项目层面统计数据，涵盖了早期读写、早期数学、执行功能和社会情感能力等领域。下一步包括将其他测量工具的数据和项目添加到相同的分析框架中，并在多个背景和幼儿测量工作中进行实地测试。其愿景是，由此产生的核心项目集以及关于数据收集、管理和分析的指南，将成为全球公共产品，以便它们可以：(i) 为 4-6 岁儿童的不同幼儿测量工具之间的联系提供起点；(ii) 提高测量工作的质量；(iii) 促进幼儿测量的扩展。当这些核心项目集辅以能够捕捉当地背景及其测量需求的项目时，应该有助于增进对普遍和特定于情境的因素的理解，这些因素是儿童发展的基础，从而帮助决策者做出决策，确保儿童获得他们充分发展所需的优质幼儿保育和教育。
