Measurement and Assessment from Birth (EDUC90912)

This subject provides Teacher Candidates with an in-depth study of key concepts and approaches in the assessment of children’s learning and development from birth to the age of three years. Common measures in early childhood education and care are studied in core subjects in the Master of Teaching Early Childhood; in this subject Teacher Candidates explore in detail concepts key to instrument construction, using methods from a range of research paradigms, to explore how we can know what young children understand. Examples of measures will be drawn from across developmental domains and disciplines.

Content includes: concepts of measurement including the different types of validity (content, criterion, construct) and reliability, confidence intervals; developmental screening measures and concepts of specificity and sensitivity with screening tools; standardised measures that allow for comparison of individual performance to peer group, including the different types of scores (raw, standard, z-scores, standard deviations, percentile ranks); dynamic assessment tasks, including those that measure children’s responses to teaching strategies and/or learning interventions; and constructs of measurement from education, social policy, sociology, and psychology. Assessment in this subject provides Teacher Candidates with opportunities to apply their knowledge of contemporary assessment approaches in the clinical assessment of young children’s learning and development.