Early Childhood Development in the East Asia Pacific .../media/Files/Activity Files/Children... · Mongolian . Papua New Guinea. Tok Pisin . Timor-Leste:

Faculty of Education The University of Hong Kong

Early Childhood Development in the East Asia Pacific:

Preliminary Findings from the East Asia Pacific – Early Child Development Scales (EAP-ECDS)

Nirmala Rao * The University of Hong Kong

*presented on behalf of the EAP-ECDS team

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Rationale for Developing the EAP-ECDS

1. Need to invest in young children

2. Emphasis on evidence-based decision making • What are the differences between children who attend

and those who do not attend early childhood programmes?

• How important is quality? • Which programmes should be scaled up?

To answer these questions, we need a tool to measure early childhood development but…

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Rationale for Developing the EAP-ECDS

• There are no globally accepted tests for ECD • Culturally and contextually appropriate assessment

of ECD is important to: monitor child development in the context of poor

school readiness and learning outcomes track the development of vulnerable and at-risk

children analyse the impact of early childhood policies and

programmes on children

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Phase I

• To select items to be used in a tool to assess early child development in the EAP region

– These items should be based on the Early Learning and

Development Standards (ELDS) of countries in the region

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Established an Indicator Database

1738 indicators for children aged 3, 4, and 5 from seven countries’ ELDS

Developed categories + sub-categories

7 categories

Determined # of indicators in each category

Based on the proportion of the total # of indicators in each category

Development of the Items

Converted indicators to items

Form a 100-item measure

Selected indicators in each category

To construct a 100-item regionally-sensitive measure

Focus on rationale and process


Converting indicators to items

Code Sub-category Indicator selected Countries Ages

LA16

Draws/writes without an example

Draws a human figure (head, eyes, mouth, trunk, arms, legs, etc.) without prompts

Philippines(4); Cambodia(5); Thailand(4;5);

4, 5


Materials 1. A piece of paper; A pencil

Procedure Assessor asks child to draw a complete picture of him / herself.

Instruction Here is a pencil and paper. I would like you to draw a complete picture of yourself standing.

Scoring Criteria and Comments

Head and/or trunk plus one other feature. Recognizable arms and/or legs. Recognizable hands and/or feet. One recognizable facial feature (eyes, mouth, nose, or ears). At least one additional recognizable facial feature (eyes, mouth, nose, or ears)

□ 0 □ 1 □ 0 □ 1 □ 0 □ 1 □ 0 □ 1 □ 0 □ 1


Phase II: Pilot studies

1. To field-test items in three countries 2. To modify the Scales based on the results and

feedback 3. To develop a revised version of the Scales which can

be used in many countries in Phase III

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Pilot study Mongolia

Fiji China

Send draft to countries

Field trials Translation & checking

Modification

Field Consultancy Support


Questions for Phase II

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the Scales – Reliability

• Cronbach’s alpha: > .70

– Validity • Content validity: expert review • Age validity: older children scoring significantly higher than

younger children

– Appropriateness • Cross-cultural differences • Item discrimination • Item facility

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The Revised Scale after Phase II

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2. Cognitive Development 21 items

4. Language and Emergent Literacy 16 items

6. Health, Hygiene and Safety 9 items

7. Socio-Emotional Development 15 items

Total 85 items

5. Motor Development 7 items

7 items 1. Approaches to Learning

10 items 3. Cultural Knowledge and Participation


Country adaptations • Translated versions of the EAP-ECDS Instruction Manual,

Scoring Form and Parent Questionnaire

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Country Translated versions in the country’s native language(s)

Cambodia Khmer

China Chinese

Mongolia Mongolian

Papua New Guinea Tok Pisin

Timor-Leste Tetum

Vanuatu Bislama


Country adaptations: Item 15 Arrange picture according to temporal order

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Cambodia

PNG

China


Country adaptations: Item 17 Predicts season or weather

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Cambodia

Vanuatu

PNG


Country adaptations: Item 52 Letters, characters / symbols

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Cambodia

China 大，小，人，山，水，日，月，木，树，手，牛，羊。

Mongolia А, Н, О, М, Б, У, С, Э, Т, И, Р, Л;


Country adaptations: Item 54 Wordless picture book

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Cambodia

China

Mongolia

Timor-Leste


Country adaptations: Item 61 Child in bathroom with a sink

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Timor-Leste

Mongolia

Cambodia

China PNG

Vanuatu


Country adaptations: Item 63 Signs

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Cambodia

China

Vanuatu


Country adaptations: Item 72 Picture of a teddy bear sitting outside the front door of a local-type store

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Vanuatu

PNG China


Country adaptations: Item 77 A picture with national flags

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Cambodia

Mongolia

China

PNG

Timor-Leste

Vanuatu


Country adaptations: Item 78 An adult throwing large amounts of garbage into a clean river

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China

Vanuatu

PNG


Parent Questionnaire

• Demographic • Information about the family

– Family asset – Family members – Family learning support

• The child’s early learning and development • The child’s health and habits

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Findings from Phase 3

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Important points • These findings are based on six countries in our

region that vary widely in human development indicators, size, early childhood policy, challenges and opportunities.

• Countries varied in sampling procedures, and samples varied in terms of preschool attendance.

• We did not make cross-country comparisons like in the PISA, PIRLS, TIMMS – we think it is inappropriate to do so.

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Demographic and Human Development Indicators in the six countries

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Sample for EAP-ECDS validation by country, age and gender

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Country Age Rural Urban

Total Girls Boys Girls Boys

China

3Y 88 85 110 104 387 4Y 89 89 105 107 390 5Y 88 92 106 106 392

Cambodia 3Y 60 59 214 188 521 4Y 51 58 214 197 520 5Y 67 47 199 238 551

Mongolia 3Y 103 102 104 105 414 4Y 104 105 104 105 418 5Y 104 104 105 102 415

Papua New Guinea

3Y 173 170 99 95 537 4Y 181 188 114 79 562 5Y 226 213 98 108 645

Timor-Leste

3Y 96 97 98 108 399 4Y 100 100 101 94 395 5Y 101 96 99 98 394

Vanuatu 3Y 69 93 6 8 176 4Y 95 102 21 12 230 5Y 127 127 17 17 288

Total

1922 1927 1914 1871 7634


Number of children with and without Early Childhood Education (ECE) across countries

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Scale Validation • Cronbach’s alpha • Content validity • Comparisons across different domains and groups

– 3 (Age) × 2 (Gender) × 2 (Urbanicity) MANOVA

• Consistency between children’s performance and parents’ assessment

• Item analysis – Appropriateness: discrimination and facility – Differential item function analysis: no systematic bias – Item information curves and test information function

curves for each domain 29


Internal consistency of the EAP-ECDS domain scores across countries

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Items for parents’ rating of children’s competence

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Domain Skill

Cognitive Development

Ability to learn new things and solve new problems

Socio-Emotional Development

Display social skills, such as showing consideration for others and ability to manage emotions

Motor Development Ability to run and jump

Ability to hold chopsticks, spoons/pencils/pens

Language and Emergent Literacy

Language Skills

Health, Hygiene, and Safety

Practice healthy and hygienic habits (e.g. washing hands independently) Follow safety rules (e.g., not touching hot/dangerous things)

Cultural Knowledge & Participation

Participate in important community events (including festivals)

Approaches to Learning

Ability to concentrate on learning new tasks (exclude watching TV)


Correlations between parent ratings and EAP-ECDS domain and total scores

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Predicting early childhood development in the East Asia Pacific

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Coefficients and 95% confidence intervals

P-values

Intercept -7.40 (-13.69, -1.11)

0.02

Pre-school attendance

6.52 (4.10, 8.76)

<0.001

Household Asset 0.81 (0.53, 1.09)

<0.001

Mother’s education 0.67 (0.50, 0.87)

<0.001

Sex (Girl as reference)

-1.0 (-1.54, -0.46)

<0.001

Age 12.28 (11.95, 12.62)

<0.001


Regression coefficients from multi-level model for global and country specific effects

of preschool attendance on the EAP-ECDS Pre-School Effects p-value Global 6.52

(4.04, 9.01) <0.001

Cambodia (KHM) 9.62 (5.83, 13.54)

<0.001

China (CHN) 7.37 (4.55, 10.09)

<0.001

Mongolia (MNG) 6.64 (3.93, 9.41)

<0.001

Papua New Guinea (PNG) 7.29 (3.59, 10.86)

<0.001

Timor-Leste (TLS) 2.38 (-1.11, 5.99)

0.188

Vanuatu (VUT) 5.92 (2.69, 9.58)

<0.001

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Country-specific effects of the impact of attendance in an early childhood programme on early child development and learning

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Participation in ECCE

• Urban-rural disparities in participation • Older children and those of better-educated parents

were more likely to be enrolled in an early learning programme than other children.

• In almost all countries, the children who attended ECCE went to kindergarten (In Timor-Leste, about half went to community/drop-in centres).

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Home Learning Environments

• 30 to 60 per cent of parents reported engaging in early learning-related activities with children at home.

• Educated parents tended to support early learning at home more than other parents.

• Mothers were more involved than other family members with the exception of Timor-Leste

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Children’s Health and Habits

• Almost all children were vaccinated

• Age was best predictor of health facilitation practices (taking children to the clinic)

• Older children and girls tended to have better health

and hygiene habits than other children

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Reported Health Problems

• Urban parents and better educated mothers were more likely to report that their children had health problems.

• It is not clear whether

– urban children suffer poorer health

– urban parents are more aware of children health issues, and are more likely to report health concerns, or

– facilities are not available in rural areas

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Potential uses

to use evidence to - decrease urban/rural gaps; - decrease gender imbalances; - promote parental involvement; - advocate early childhood education and care; - guide ECCE curriculum development/ review; - …

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Conclusions

• First regional tool • Bottom-up approach to development of assessment

tool • Enormous resources put into ensuring context-

sensitivity of items, and developing a psychometrically robust tool

• There are many challenges associated with ensuring cross-cultural equivalence of items

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Early Childhood Development in the East Asia Pacific .../media/Files/Activity Files/Children... · Mongolian . Papua New Guinea. Tok Pisin . Timor-Leste: