Early Childhood Topics

• Head Start/Early Head Start
• Early Care & Education Settings
• Home Visiting
• Early Childhood Education Practices
• Studying Children in a Multicultural Society
• Clients

•  

Assessing Early Childhood Teachers’ Use of Progress Monitoring for Individualization

Early childhood policymakers, practitioners, and researchers continue to call for evidence-based measurement tools such as progress monitoring, to improve educational outcomes. Progress monitoring is a science-based practice that assesses children’s educational and social performance, then uses the data to inform and improve teaching. Conducting these assessments often requires a large investment of staff time and resources, however, with little guidance on how teachers should use data to inform daily practice. Progress monitoring is important and required, and existing supports promote its adoption. Yet information is sparse on how teachers actually collect and use assessment data to inform their early childhood education practice and create individualized instruction.

Mathematica is developing an evidence-based conceptualization of how teachers use progress monitoring for individualization of instruction and support for enhancing school readiness. Mathematica first conducted a literature review to identify the critical areas to be addressed by a measure of teachers’ use of progress monitoring for individualization and to find examples of how others have measured teachers’ use of progress monitoring for individualization. Evidence and theory identified through the literature informed the development of a conceptual framework depicting the theoretical relations between key constructs underlying progress monitoring. The study’s conceptual framework is the foundation of a measurement plan for developing a comprehensive assessment of teacher implementation of progress monitoring and use of progress monitoring to tailor instruction to children’s needs.

The project addresses the following research questions:

• What are the key areas to include when evaluating how teachers monitor child progress and use the information to individualize instruction and supports for children’s development?
• How can these constructs be operationalized to measure teachers’ ongoing implementation of progress monitoring and individualization?

This project also may develop a preschool-age, classroom-based measure of implementation and quality of progress-monitoring activities. In addition, researchers may adapt that measure to use in a different context or with a different population (for example, for home visitors working with families with young children). A group of expert consultants from a range of disciplines will provide the project team with feedback on the plans and resulting products to ensure their usefulness for the field and researchers. Mathematica is partnering with subcontractor Barbara Wasik (Temple University) and consultant Judith Carta.

This project can make a strong contribution to the early childhood field—Head Start in particular—by defining the key aspects of progress-monitoring systems and providing guidance on efficiently assessing their implementation. Ideally, this research may lead to practice enhancements that will improve program performance.