Assessment
of Cognitive Development in Early Education
Jwalla P. Somwaru, Ed.D.
Abstract
In view of the public concern for academic achievement in programs
such as Headstart and Follow Through, and from the importance attached
to cognitive development in the early years by contemporary education theorists,
it is suggested that teachers in early education programs be given help
in the process of assessing and developing cognitive skills among their
students.
A test for cognitive skills - in the areas of thinking, language,
and mathematical knowledge - has been developed by the author. It has been
designed for teacher use as an instructional aid. From performance in the
test the teacher could identify educational needs, and develop programs
for individuals or groups. The test manual contains suggestions regarding
the kinds of instructional activities that may be used to develop the kinds
of skills assessed, and lists some selected resource materials that could
be used for instruction.
Concern for Cognitive Development in Early Education
When Head Start was being launched in 1965, a panel of experts in
education developed a list of seven laudable goals. Health, and emotional
and social development headed the list. In the third place came mental
processes and skills; these were followed by what are generally called
affective goals.
But in spite of these broad goals, Head Start was called to account
for not producing enough competence among its children to keep them performing
in school at a better rate than non-Head Start children on measures of
academic achievement. The goals of Head Start as perceived by the public
had little to do with these seven broad objectives. (Hodges & Sheehan,
1978, p. 6)
Why did this happen? It is not unreasonable to assume that when parents send their children to any kind of school, there is an expectation that they would Learn something. Usually, the "something" is related to cultural criteria for successful schooling, namely, reading, writing, and arithmetic. It is not surprising, therefore, that academic criteria again took primacy in the evaluation of Follow Through ten years after its inception.
In an attempt to enhance the efficiency of preschool education, several procedures and instruments have been developed and used for screening children before their entry into preschool or kindergarten. These procedures generally include evaluation of health, and motor, social, personal (affective), and cognitive development. The cognitive component varies in content and size from one procedure to another. While the stated purpose of such screening usually is to identify children who have, or are likely to have, special needs in some or all of the traits assessed, it turns out more often than not that children with the more obvious problems in health and motor development receive some form of corrective help, while the larger number who show varying degrees of lag in their social, personal, and cognitive development do not get much in the nature of corrective attention. In the cognitive domain, two reasons for the lack of corrective intervention are: (a) the results of the screening tests usually are not available to the teachers, and (b) simple procedures for diagnostic assessment, which could be used by regular teachers, are scarce. While assessment services are available to some preschools and kindergartens, this is not the general pattern because such services are expensive. Given this situation, there is an obvious need for "do-it-yourself" assessment kits and procedures for use by teachers or other support staff who carry out everyday instruction.
Rationale for Test of Early Learning Skills
Learning is cumulative. Simple and specific learnings lead to the acquisition of other learnings, concepts, and generalizations (Gagne, 1968). When a child is entering preschool or kindergarten he or she brings an accumulatiQn of learning to this new situation. Since the learning experiences of children vary widely, and since individual rates of development also vary, it is important to "take stock" of the capabilities that individual children bring to these new learning situations. The purpose of the Test of Early Learning Skills (Somwaru, 1979b) is to determine what enabling skills a child has for acquiring school learning, and to identify what educational needs the child may have. In other words, the purpose of the test is to give the teacher information on which to build educational programs for individual children, rather than simply to identify children who are high-risk for the educational enterprise.
This conceptualization derives its justification from current learning theory which recognizes the importance of environmental stimulation in bringing about cognitive development (Kohlberg, 1968). Capabilities for acquiring school learning, which are sometimes lumped together under the term "intelligence," are really learned strategies for processing information. They constitute "skills" which can be taught and developed (Hunt, 1961; Kohlberg, 1968; Weikart, Rogers, Adcock, & McClelland, 1971). Within this conceptual framework, the obvious inference is that deliberate attempts can be made in the preschool or kindergarten to develop appropriate skills for the acquisition of early learning if such skills appear to be lacking, or not fully developed (Kagan, 1971). It should be noted, however, that not all skills are easily taught or developed. Specific items of information can be taught easily; information of a more general nature takes longer; strategies for thinking take much longer.
The Test of Early Learning Skills is a limited assessment device which presents the child with 18 items in each of the following three areas: Thinking, Language, and Mathematics or Number
In each test, the items are ordered in terms of difficulty, ranging from those appropriate for average 3½ year olds to those appropriate for 5 1/2 year olds.In view of the wide range of performance capabilities of children within this age range, the test has been designed so that all children start at the first item and proceed to the end of each test. Exposure to the test thus gives the child an opportunity to demonstrate capability, or inability, at performing on 54 graded tasks(see Figure 1) considered important for acquiring learning in preschool or kindergarten.
Figure 1
Content
A significant body of literature on early learning points to the importance of skills in the three areas named above for school learning. CIRCUS is a comprehensive assessment device for nursery school and kindergarten. The authors developed tests for 13 cognitive areas which were selected from a longer list generated by child development experts as denoting significant aspects of social competence in children. Evidence of the validity of these tests and their relevance to school learning is given in the Technical Report for CIRCUS (1976). The 54 items of TELS assess some of the skills which were identified in the research which supported the development of CIRCUS.
Most curriculum outlines for Kindergarten and Grade 1 include all the skills tested by the three subtests of the Test of Early Learning Skills (TELS). The content outlines of commonly used tests such as DIAL (Mardell & Goldenburg, 1975) and LAP (LeMay, Griffin, & Sanford, 1977), include content in the psychomotor, social, and affective domains. These domains are not considered to be unimportant. However, they are not included in TELS because they are well covered by other tests, and because the concern for the preschooler's cognitive development is a growing one.
Development
The items for TELS were drawn from the large pool of 2120 items which
were calibrated and scaled for the diagnostic Assessment of Basic Competencies
battery (Somwaru, 1979a). Field testing was carried out in the spring of
1977 across the U.S.A. and Canada, and involved the administration of individual
tests to 20,088 children selected on a stratified random basis. The items
used in TELS were identified as appropriate for the age range 3+ to 5+
years; the calibrated values determined the order of the items. In view
of the fact that calibration was done independently for the 11 subtests
of the battery, and that items were regrouped for TELS, a further field
test was carried out during the spring of 1978, again in the U.S.A. and
Canada, for the purpose of determining difficulty values and norms for
finely defined age groups. At this time, reliability and validity studies
were also conducted. A test-retest correlation procedure was used to assess
reliability. Validity studies involved comparison of performance on TELS
with performance on two published tests, DIAL (Mardell & Golden-burg,
1975) and LAP (LeMay et al., 1977). Normative data, and evidence of the
reliability and validity of TELS are reported in the following table.
Use and Interpretation
TELS is intended for individualized administration to children between the ages of 3 1/2 and 5½ years, at the time when they are entering preschool, nursery school, or kindergarten, or at any time in this period when information is needed. It is recommended that the test be given by the person who is responsible for the educational program of the child, or by a supervisory person. While the test may be administered by an aide, the results should be interpreted and used by the teacher or supervisor. The test results are intended to give qualitative as well as quantitative information that can be used for instructional purposes by the teacher. After appropriate instruction has been given to meet individual needs, the test may be readministered for the purpose of determining the extent of learning that has taken place. TELS is essentially a teaching tool, not a screening test or an instrument for classification.
Responses to individual items indicate what kinds of skills are present
or absent. However, in view of the fact that few items are used to test
various skills, diagnostic interpretation at the skill level should be
undertaken with caution. The total score for each subtest is a more reliable
criterion for level of development in each of the test's three domains,
Thinking, Language, and Mathematics. In
addition, a normative interpretation can be made in relation to
the performance of the child's age peers at intervals of six months. The
test is designed to be both diagnostic and normative.
For each age group, the percentile rank indicates the proportion of children scoring at or below a level of performance. Since criteria for determining when educational intervention should occur are elusive, it is difficult to establish "cut-off scores" with any degree of accuracy. However, a score which is below the 25th percentile rank should give rise to concern and intervention. Charts included with TELS identify the content of the tests, suggest what kinds of educational intervention may be undertaken to meet individual needs, and list some suggested sources of materials which may be used for instruction. These sources were selected because they focus more directly on the skills assessed by TELS. Their inclusion, however, does not endorse their efficacy.
References
CIRCUS, Technical Report (N-K) Princeton, N.J.: Educational Testing
Service, 1976.
Gagne, R. M. Contributions of learning to human development. Psychological
Review, 1968, 7~, 177-191.
Hodges, W. L., & Sheehan, R. Follow Through as ten years of
expectation.
Young Children, Nov. 1978, 4-14.
Hunt, J. M. Intelligence and experience. New York: Ronald Press,
1961. Kagan, J. Cognitive development and programs for daycare. In E. H.
Grotberg (Ed.), Day care: Resources for decisions. Washington, D.C.:
Office of Economic Opportunity, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.
Pp. 135'152.
Kohlberg, L. Early education: A cognitive-developmental view. Child
Development, 1968, 39, 1013-1062.
LeMay, P. W., Griffin, P.M., & Sanford, A. R. Learning accomplishment
profile (LAP). Chapel Hill, N. C.: Chapel Hill Training Outreach.Project,
1977.
Mardell, C., & Goldenburg, D. Developmental indicators for the
assesment of learning (DIAL),
Edison, N.J.: Childcraft, 1975.
Weikart, D.P., Rogers, L., Adcock, C., & McClelland, D. The
cognitively oriented curriculum. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press,
1971
Assessment
of Cognitive Development in Early Education ( beginning of article)