Introduction
Although interest in preschool science is not new (see Riechard,
1973, for a review of programs to that date), this area of learning is
enjoying renewed attention in the United States among those concerned
with prekindergarten education and with improving scientific literacy
and achievement among the nation's citizens. In the early education
field, makers of widely used and respected comprehensive preschool
curricula such as the Creative Curriculum
(http://www.teachingstrategies.com/page/CCPS_Studies.cfm) are
strengthening their offerings in science, and subject-specific programs
have emerged (Brenneman, Stevenson-Boyd, & Frede, 2009). The
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC, n.d.)
holds that children should be provided various opportunities and
materials to learn key content and principles of science. The Head Start
Child Outcomes Framework includes science among its eight readiness
domains (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2003). Most U.S.
states have articulated learning expectations for preschool science,
either as a stand-alone area or as part of expectations for general
cognition and language (Scott-Little, Lesko, Martella, & Milburn,
2007; Snow & Van Hemel, 2008). The current presidential
administration has pledged to make this domain a priority at the
prekindergarten level ("Barack Obama and Joe Biden's
Plan," n.d.), and the National Science Foundation's Discovery
Research K-12 program has begun to solicit and fund proposals to study
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational
programs that support prekindergarten children and those who teach them.
Technology and banking industry leaders also support efforts to make
STEM accessible to America's preschoolers (e.g., American Honda
Foundation, 2010; Motorola Foundation, n.d.). The PNC Foundation (2009)
has made a major investment in partnerships between informal science
education organizations and preschools through its Grow Up Great with
Science! initiative. The Boeing Corporation provides funding support for
PBS's Sid the Science Kid (http://pbskids.org/sid/), and Northrop
Grumman supports Peep and the Big Wide World
(http://www.peepandthebigwideworld.com/), both of which are
science-based programs for preschool audiences.
These curricula, policy statements, and funding commitments reflect
beliefs that early exposure to STEM concepts will lead to increased
comfort with them later in life and that early experiences are critical
both for school readiness and as foundations for future learning (see
also Beering, 2009). These ideas are attractive given well-established
findings of the critical impact of early learning experiences on
long-term educational and societal outcomes, especially among
underserved populations (Barnett, 2008; Bowman, Donovan, & Burns,
2001; Committee for Economic Development, 2006; Shonkoff & Phillips,
2000), and research that establishes that measures of general classroom
quality show moderate relationships to children's learning outcomes
[e.g., Burchinal et al., 2008; Melhuish et al., 2008 (EPPE); Haahr, 2005
(PISA)]. Given these findings, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the
provision of high-quality science learning experiences early in
development will pay off with increased long-term achievement in, and
student engagement with, science (National Research Council, 2005).
Increasing the number of studies that can speak definitively to these
issues is imperative, especially if, as a recent large-scale study in
Florida suggests, school readiness in science lags behind other domains,
at least among at-risk learners (Greenfield, Jirout, et al., 2009).
Despite the increased interest and investment in early science
education and the expectation that high-quality educational supports
will result in improved school readiness and achievement in science and
related domains, evaluation and research efforts have been severely
limited by a lack of appropriate instrumentation. The authors of a
recent National Research Council (NRC) report on assessment in early
childhood (Snow & Van Hemel, 2008) concluded that science
assessments could not be included in their discussion because there
"simply was not a basis in theory, research, or practice to include
... science, despite [its] obvious importance" (p. 59). The early
childhood field does not currently possess the tools needed to answer
questions that bear directly on the methods by which to support and
improve science teaching and learning. These tools and methods will
reflect particular visions for early childhood science and education
more generally. Thus, a starting point for anyone designing or using an
assessment instrument is to clarify goals for children's learning
with regard to thinking skills and content. Then one can ask, "Are
the informal and formal preschool science education programs that we
develop effective for meeting those goals? Are some more effective than
others? What are the materials and instructional interactions that
typify a science-minded classroom? How do we get the most
"bang" for our limited educational buck? How do we ensure that
each child has appropriate learning opportunities that build on and
extend the excitement, enthusiasm, content knowledge, and reasoning
skills that he or she brings to the scientific endeavor?"
This final question is, perhaps, of most interest to the adults who
spend their days with young children. Developmental research tells us
that long before they attend kindergarten, children possess content
knowledge that roughly maps onto the scientific disciplines of physics,
chemistry, psychology, and biology and that they have begun to reason in
ways that form foundations for later scientific thinking (Duschl,
Schweingruber, & Shouse, 2007). Young children also approach the
world in ways that remind us of scientists. A powerful illustration of
this comes from the following mother-child interaction paraphrased from
Callanan and Oakes (1992, pp. 221-222):
Child: Why does Daddy, James (big brother), and me have blue eyes
and you have green eyes?
Her mother tells her she got her eyes from Daddy, says goodnight,
and leaves the room.
The child calls her mother back 5 minutes later and says: I like
Pee Wee Herman, and I have blue eyes. Daddy likes Pee Wee Herman, and he
has blue eyes. James likes Pee Wee Herman, and he has blue eyes. If you
liked Pee Wee Herman you could get blue eyes, too.
The mother tells her daughter it would take more than liking Pee
Wee to make her own eyes blue. Then she realizes the child doesn't
understand and explains that God gave her green eyes and they can't
be changed.
Child: Could you try to like Pee Wee Herman so we could see if your
eyes turn blue?
In this short interaction, the child engages multiple inquiry
skills including making and describing observations about eye colors and
TV preferences, comparing these, questioning the origins of eye color,
reflecting on what her mother has told her to explain these differences
and deciding (perhaps implicitly) that this explanation does not make
sense, generating her own explanation for the source of the differences
she has noted, and designing a test to find out whether her causal
explanation is correct. While this example may seem extraordinary, those
of us who work with children have many similar stories that reveal the
capabilities of the young mind, and we feel the responsibility to
support, celebrate, and challenge those capabilities. Early childhood as
a field awaits strong research evidence that high-quality science
learning experiences in preschool lead to long-term benefits for school
achievement, scientific literacy, and professional achievements. Until
that evidence is available, it remains incumbent upon us to provide
children with a full range of enjoyable learning experiences that take
advantage of their natural curiosity, desire to know, and deep interest
in scientific topics.
Current State of Preschool Science Assessment
The recent National Research Council report Early Childhood
Assessment: Why, What, and How (Snow & Van Hemel, 2008) defines
assessment as "gathering information in order to make informed
instructional decisions" (p. 27). Educators and policy makers who
would like to make informed decisions for early science instruction are
limited in their efforts because science is not among the domains that
are well represented in the catalog of reliable and valid assessments
available to educators and researchers (see also Brassard & Boehm,
2007). This seems to be true regardless of the purpose one might have
for assessing science learning. That is, whether one is a classroom
teacher who wishes to assess individual children's learning and
skills to guide individualized instruction for her students, a
researcher who speaks with a sample of children to assess the
effectiveness of a curriculum or curricular program, or a researcher or
administrator who observes a classroom to measure the quality of the
environment for science learning, few comprehensive tools exist. In what
follows, more detail is given on the state of science assessment and on
the work of research teams making progress on these fronts.
The discussion begins by briefly addressing the everyday assessment
that occurs in preschool classrooms when teachers observe and interact
with children, then moves to descriptions of more structured,
performance-based assessments used by educators to measure
children's progress in scientific knowledge building (and other
readiness domains). A discussion of program evaluation follows, with an
emphasis on a new standardized measure that can be used in large-scale
studies to assess the science readiness landscape for large groups of
learners and to provide information about the strengths and weaknesses
of particular programs. Finally, instrumentation to measure the quality
of supports for science learning in preschool classrooms is reviewed.
Given the links between overall classroom quality and children's
readiness outcomes, it is assumed that high-quality classrooms for
science learning will similarly be associated with positive learning
outcomes in the domain. Of course, whether or not this assumption is
correct is an empirical question that cannot be answered in the absence
of psychometrically valid tools for assessing both learning outcomes and
classroom quality.
Learning and Knowledge Assessments
Supporting and Assessing Science Learning during Everyday
Interactions The preschool teacher is charged, every day, with observing
children and communicating with them in ways that support their
functioning, learning, and thinking in cognitive, social, physical, and
emotional areas of development. The adult observes and interacts with
children to gain information, then responds with activities,
discussions, materials, and questions that encourage children to explore
and learn more about the world around them. Meeting this challenge
requires that teachers understand child development and the expected
sequences of learning across multiple domains. For science,
specifically, this means that teachers need to be well versed in the
kinds of foundational knowledge that preschoolers already have about
science topics, the reasoning skills they possess, and the potential
limits of those skills. It also means that teachers need some idea of
how learning and development progress in order to support
children's movement along learning pathways or trajectories for
science (Duschl et al., 2007; Gelman, Brenneman, Macdonald, & Roman,
2009). In short, it requires not just knowing what to teach but how to
teach it based both on general understandings of development and on the
needs and interests of individual learners with regard to science.
Unfortunately, many preschool educators report having concerns about
their own knowledge of science and their ability to support
children's learning in this domain (Greenfield, Jirout, et al.,
2009). These concerns are not surprising given that early education
teacher training programs do not emphasize science, either through
classroom or practicum training (see Brenneman et al., 2009, for a
review). As a result, the teacher who wants to support children's
science learning often must spend extra time preparing to teach it by
filling in his or her own knowledge gaps (Worth & Grollman, 2003).
The field of early childhood education could better serve young
learners and those who teach them by providing more comprehensive and
intensive preservice and inservice professional preparation programs in
early science. Studies of teacher attitudes and beliefs about science
generally, and about teaching it to young children specifically, will
enable us to better meet this challenge in a focused manner, as will
studies of preschool educators' knowledge of science and
pedagogical content knowledge in this domain. Among the key features of
an early science assessment system will be tools that allow greater
insight into teachers' knowledge and thought processes so that we
can respond with programs that better prepare them to assess and support
science learning in the preschool classroom.
One such tool is the Preschool Teachers' Attitudes and
Behaviors towards Science (P-TABS), a newly validated measure of
preschool educators' attitudes and beliefs about science developed
by researchers at the University of Miami. P-TABS can be used to gain a
clearer picture of the ideas that teachers have about science and to
assess the effects of professional development on these ideas (Maier,
Greenfield, & Bulotsky-Shearer, 2011). The Education Development
Center has developed and validated a measure of teacher pedagogical
content knowledge as part of the Science Teaching and Environment Rating
Scale (STERS; described further below). These Science Teacher
Performance Tasks have been used to measure positive changes in
teachers' science knowledge as a result of participating in an
intensive professional development program (Clark-Chiarelli, Gropen,
Chalufour, Hoisington, Fuccillo, & Thieu, 2011).
Performance-based Assessments for Individualized Instruction,
Progress Monitoring, and Curricular Evaluation
A particular kind of professional support could come in the form of
child observation and assessment frameworks and training of teachers to
use them in the classroom. Educational Testing Service's (ETS,
n.d.) PATHWISE Understanding Early Science Learning provides early
educators with an assessment framework and strategies to systematically
collect and use children's behavior, language, and work products to
guide instruction. The authors of PATHWISE suggest that "a first
purpose of assessment in early science education is to help teachers
observe, record, and reflect upon children's investigations of the
natural world" (p. 1). In this view, assessment is less about
identifying children's strengths and weaknesses than about
supporting teachers as observers and interpreters of children's
knowledge-building processes so that they can better support these
processes (Chittenden & Jones, 1999). A similar approach to early
science assessment is a key part of the constructivist classroom
(Edmiaston, 2002). Under this theoretical orientation, assessment serves
dual purposes, to document and interpret children's knowledge and
reasoning while simultaneously evaluating how classroom activities and
instruction encourage or hinder learning.
Under both approaches described (Chittenden & Jones, 1999; ETS,
n.d., Edmiaston, 2002), the evaluation process involves identifying
evidence of children's science learning during everyday classroom
activities by collecting data over time from multiple sources. These
sources include actions, talk, and artifacts that children create
individually and in collaborative groups. Individual student portfolios
composed of teachers' descriptions of ongoing behavior and
conversations as well as children's work products (drawings,
concept webs, science journals, sculptures, models, and so on) provide
evidence used to assess children's understandings (see also Gelman
et al., 2009; Worth & Grollman, 2003). This information is
interpreted and applied to inform instruction and support new learning.
As teachers practice these assessment procedures, they become more
skilled as observers of children's scientific thinking and behavior
and are in an increasingly better position to support preschoolers'
learning and development in science and other related domains.
The focus on collecting and interpreting anecdotes and
documentation of children's science learning can also feed into
comprehensive progress-monitoring tools that span critical learning and
development domains that include, but are not limited to, science.
Assessments such as the Work Sampling System (Dichtelmiller, Jablon,
Marsden, & Meisels, 2001), the Child Observation Record (HighScope
Educational Research Foundation, 2003), and the Early Learning System
(Riley-Ayers, Stevenson-Garcia, Frede, & Brenneman, in press)
provide structures for tracking student progress in science learning,
and other learning areas, using portfolios to inform teacher report.
Teachers who use the Galileo System (Bergan, Burnham, Feld, &
Bergan, 2009), in which they judge whether particular readiness skills
are learned based on having observed a child demonstrating the skill or
knowledge under three different circumstances, similarly would benefit
from gathering evidence of children's science learning as they
complete their ratings. Assessments of this type do introduce data
collection burdens on teachers. However, such data collection is done
with the goal of providing information about individual students as
learners of science, math, language, literacy, socioemotional skills,
motor skills, and so on, in order to help the teacher better tailor
instruction to children who require further support, or challenge, in a
particular area. Results from these assessments can be used to provide
local information for teachers and schools to assess individual learning
profiles at particular time points, to track growth over time, and, when
aggregated, to assess whether curricular programmatic goals are being
met.
Direct Assessments of Science Learning
Direct assessments of learning for purposes of program evaluation
sometimes take advantage of established tasks from the developmental
psychology and educational literatures or have been adapted from them.
Van Egeren and colleagues (Van Egeren, Watson, & Morris, 2008)
developed a child outcomes assessment battery to evaluate the Head Start
on Science program. Measures included evidence evaluation, biology
knowledge, hypothesis evaluation, and theory of mind tasks drawn from
the developmental literature (Sodian, Zaitchik, & Carey, 1991, for
evidence evaluation; Hatano & Inagaki, 1994, for biology; and
Ruffman, Perner, Olson, & Doherty, 1993, for hypothesis evaluation
and theory of mind tasks).
Measures used to assess effects of the Preschool Pathways to
Science Program have included tasks similar to those used in
developmental work, such as tests of children's understanding of
the sources of their knowledge or their knowledge about setting up an
informative experimental test (see Gelman et al., 2009).
Evaluation of the Marvelous Explorations through Science and
Stories (MESS) program implemented in Head Start classrooms also used a
combination of home-grown measures and those drawn from the
developmental literature (such as theory of mind tasks) to evaluate
program effectiveness in bringing about growth in children's
science skills and knowledge of conceptual content, such as animal life
cycles and defense mechanisms (S. Ellis, personal communication, August
31, 2010). Language skills were also assessed using the Expressive and
Receptive One Word Vocabulary Tests (EOWVT and ROWVT).
Assessments used to measure the benefits of the ScienceStart!
Curriculum on children's language development include the
well-established Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test III (PPVT; Dunn &
Dunn, 1997), which has revealed benefits of the program (French, 2004).
In each of these cases, researchers (rather than classroom
teachers) assessed learning as a way to evaluate the effectiveness of
curricular programs and interventions for science. Until recently,
however, the field has had no comprehensive assessment to directly test
children's knowledge of science content and processes in a valid,
reliable way. This gap in instrumentation has hindered efforts to
research and evaluate preschool science programs and curricula.
A number of years ago, Daryl Greenfield and colleagues began
development of such a tool. They began by reviewing state learning
expectations for early science and those preschool curricula that
included or focused on science, with the goal of creating a blueprint of
content and process skills emphasized by the states and by those
curricula. An initial item pool that reflected these content and process
skills was created. Expert review and pilot testing were used to choose
the final item pool and to further ensure the construct validity of the
instrument. Results of testing in Head Start classrooms showed that the
assessment was sensitive to a range of knowledge and skills, captured
growth over the school year in science skills, and showed moderate,
positive correlations with vocabulary and learning behaviors scores
(Greenfield, Dominguez, et al., 2009).
The team's ongoing work involves the development and use of an
80-item version of the test to use to evaluate the impact of the Early
Childhood Hands-On Science (ECHOS) professional development and
curriculum program on children's learning in science and other
domains. Additionally, the original flipbook version of the science
assessment will serve as the basis for the development of a computerized
version, Lens on Science. Extensive psychometric evaluation will be
completed with the ultimate goal of delivering an assessment that can be
used in research and program evaluation nationally (Greenfield,
Dominguez, Greenberg, Fuccillo, & Maier, 2011). Such an assessment
will allow states, school districts, or other educational entities to
know generally where their students are with respect to science learning
upon kindergarten entry, which, in turn, can inform educational decision
making with regard to programmatic, curricular, or instructional changes
to improve learning.
Assessments of Science-Relevant Skills and Dispositions
Other areas of child development certainly influence, and are
influenced by, science learning. Thus, one might reasonably look to
other important areas of child learning and development for evidence of
related skills and knowledge. For example, social skills have an impact
on scientific inquiry, because children engaging in such inquiry in
school must learn to share and present evidence for their opinions
during scientific discussion, to respect others' opinions during
discussions, and to cooperate with peers and adults during group
experiments or inquiry experiences. In fact, in their review of state
learning standards and curricula for preschool, Greenfield and
colleagues (Greenfield, Jirout, et al., 2009) identify cooperation as
one of eight critical inquiry skills.
Similarly, an individual child's approaches to
learning--including initiative, motivation, persistence, and
curiosity--should influence the nature of spontaneous explorations.
Identified as a critical domain of child learning and development by the
National Education Goals Panel (1995), approaches to learning is among
the domains of assessment described in detail in the recent NRC volume
on assessment in early childhood (Snow & Van Hemel, 2008). While the
reader is referred to that volume for a comprehensive discussion of this
domain and assessments, one goal of this paper is to describe relevant
developments that have not made their way into the larger literature.
One such effort is being undertaken by Jamie Jirout and David Klahr
(2010a, 2010b) who are developing and validating a measure of
children's scientific curiosity.
Jirout has developed a game-like measure that manipulates
uncertainty or ambiguity within an information-gathering situation as a
way to assess individual learners' levels of curiosity. The present
computerized version of the game Underwater Exploration! presents
situations in which children can re-confirm known information (that is,
at a level of no or low uncertainty), explore under conditions of
moderate uncertainty (i.e., one of a few fish could appear behind a
window), or explore under conditions of high uncertainty (i.e., any fish
could appear). The game is adaptive in ways that provide detailed
information about an individual child's preferred levels of
uncertainty. That is, a child's choices allow the researcher to
assess his or her comfort with situations in which correct answers are
more or less certain. The behavioral assessment correlates positively
with different scales of the Preschool Learning Behavior Scale,
including competence motivation, attention/persistence, attitudes toward
learning, and the total score of the scale (Jirout & Klahr, 2010a,
2010b). Jirout's motivation for development of a curiosity measure
for preschoolers and kindergartners comes from the fact that
"curiosity" is mentioned so often as a dispositional aspect of
school readiness, yet the field has neither an accepted definition of
curiosity nor a psychometrically validated measure of it. The instrument
will allow for assessment of the extent to which educational programs
support and increase children's curiosity, which should motivate
increased exploratory behaviors by children and lead to greater learning
(Jirout & Klahr, 2010b).
In sum, measuring individual children's science learning can
take a variety of forms, and the choice of forms should be motivated by
the purpose for which information is being gathered. Teachers observe,
listen, and question in order to assess children's ideas and
understandings in the moment, during everyday classroom activities.
Performance-based assessment tools, informed by children's ongoing
behaviors and work products under unstructured and semi-structured
circumstances, provide formative assessment of children's learning
and can be used by teachers to design new learning experiences to better
support and challenge learners in science and other areas. In addition
to progress monitoring for individual learners, information from
assessments can be used to assess the degree to which a particular
curricular program is related to growth in children's science
learning. (Note that the validity of this information, or of comparisons
among programs, is warranted only to the extent that teachers using the
tools have been trained to adequate levels of reliability and are
checked regularly to ensure fidelity to assessment procedures and, thus,
the comparability of information across classrooms or programs.)
The University of Miami direct assessment in flipbook form and the
forthcoming computerized Lens on Science version are standardized
measures appropriate to assess the strengths and weaknesses in programs
with regard to the extent to which they prepare young learners for
kindergarten.
Classroom Quality Measures Related to Science Learning
If young children's science readiness is to improve so that it
no longer shows the flattest growth curves and lowest overall
achievement among the Head Start readiness domains (Greenfield, Jirout,
et al., 2009), then assessments for learners are important. So, too, are
assessments of the environments in which children grow and develop as
science learners. To improve outcomes, educators and policy makers need
to know what kinds of materials and classroom interactions are linked to
better learning. Environmental quality measures can contribute to this
endeavor in a variety of ways. A structured observation tool describes
the features of a high-quality learning environment and can be used by
educators and administrators to evaluate their programs relative to the
benchmarks described by the tool or to other programs that have been
assessed using the same tool. These evaluations can be used to identify
areas in need of improvement and to guide professional development for
educators.
Classroom quality measures can be used at multiple time points to
monitor efforts to indicate ways that program and environmental quality
might be improved. In these cases, the structured observations are
completed by an external observer, not the classroom teacher. Another
kind of classroom quality measure would involve a self-evaluation for
teachers (and perhaps an evaluation by coaches or mentors) to inform and
improve their instructional interactions with children (e.g., Frede,
Stevenson-Garcia, & Brenneman, 2010). Finally, classroom quality
measures could be used for program accountability purposes, if they were
psychometrically validated and reliably administered (Snow & Van
Hemel, 2008).
Mirroring the situation for child outcome assessment instruments,
measures of classroom quality with regard to supports for science are
not widely available. A working group that reviewed the available tools
for assessing instructional supports for mathematics and science in
preschool-grade 3 care settings concluded that the early childhood
field's assessment tools are limited in both areas but that science
is particularly weak (Brenneman et al., in press). This sentiment is
echoed by other authors (Greenfield, Jirout, et al., 2009; Snow &
Van Hemel, 2008), with the recent Snow and Van Hemel (2008) report
concluding that most existing classroom environment observation measures
assess the learning environment at a very general level, and only a few
adequately assess practices related to cognition or academic skill
domains such as science. The following sections outlines some measures
that do exist, in varying states of development.
ECERS-R
An extension of the Early Childhood Environment Rating
Scale--Revised (ECERS-R; Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005), the Early
Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Extension (ECERS-E) was developed in
response to the overall lack of attention to literacy, mathematics,
science, and diversity in the ECERS-R (Sylva, Siraj-Blatchford, &
Taggart, 2003). The ECERS-E measures classroom science supports more
extensively than any other published, widely available classroom
observation instrument. Observers are required to evaluate two items
that involve the presence of natural materials and the presence of
classrooms area(s) dedicated to science and science resources. Observers
also choose to score one item among the three remaining science
activity/science processes items (nonliving, living processes and the
world around us, and food preparation) after determining which kind of
science learning experience is most apparent during the observation.
This approach might represent a solution to the issue that observers
spend a limited amount of time in a classroom and cannot be expected to
observe the full range of science activities; however, important areas
of science learning are either not represented in the instrument or
remain unevaluated if another area is more apparent during the
observation period. The psychometric properties of the ECERS-E include
inter-rater reliability correlations above .88, weighted kappa
coefficients that range from .83 to .97, and a high degree of concurrent
validity with the ECERS-R (.78). The average total ECERS-E score shows
significant, positive associations with children's scores for
prereading, nonverbal reasoning, and early number concepts. The science
scale alone did not show a significant relationship with child outcomes
(see Halle & Vick, 2007; Sylva et al., 2003, for reviews).
STERS and PRISM
Two instruments that assess a more comprehensive range of science
materials, concepts, and reasoning skills have been developed by teams
from the Education Development Center (EDC) (Chalufour, Worth, &
Clark-Chiarelli, 2006) and the National Institute for Early Education
Research (NIEER) (Stevenson-Garcia, Brenneman, Frede, & Weber,
2010). EDC's measure, the Science Teaching and Environment Rating
Scale (STERS), was created in response to the need to measure changes in
the quality of classroom science instruction to evaluate the
effectiveness of a professional development intervention. The STERS uses
classroom observation and a teacher interview to rate the extent to
which the teaching staff (1) creates a physical environment for inquiry
and learning, (2) facilitates direct experiences to promote conceptual
learning, (3) promotes use of scientific inquiry, (4) creates a
collaborative climate that promotes exploration and understanding, (5)
provides opportunities for extended conversations, (6) builds
children's vocabulary, (7) plans in-depth investigations, and (8)
assesses children's learning. Each of these components is rated
using a 4-point rubric (1 = deficient through 4 = exemplary) that
describes the sorts of materials and interactions one would find in a
classroom that meets each numerical level. The authors report high
internal consistency for the STERS (Cronbach's alpha = .96), and
further investigation of the psychometric properties of the instrument
are ongoing (Clark-Chiarelli, Gropen, Chalufour, Hoisington, Fuccillo,
& Thieu, 2011).
NIEER's Preschool Rating Instrument for Science and
Mathematics (PRISM) is a comprehensive, 16-item instrument designed to
measure the presence of classroom materials and teaching interactions
that support both mathematics and science learning. The science items
focus on materials and teaching interactions that support explorations
of biological and nonbiological science; encourage reading about,
writing about, and representing science; encourage investigations and
discussions of scientific concepts; support observing, predicting,
comparing, and contrasting; and encourage recording of scientific
information in journals, graphs, and other representational formats. In
addition, items on measurement and classification cross the math and
science domains. A full validation study and continued exploration of
factor structure is planned for the PRISM. Preliminary analyses indicate
acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .78) and
moderate concurrent validity with the ECERS-R (R = .41) (Brenneman,
Stevenson-Garcia, Frede, & Jung, 2011).
Directions for Further Research
As described in the introduction to this article, there is
currently a great deal of enthusiasm for preschool STEM learning among
education policy makers, U.S. federal and state governments, industry
leaders, curriculum developers, and researchers. To capitalize on this
interest and to translate it into clear educational policy and practice
recommendations require strong research-based evidence about the
instructional environments and interactions that provide positive
learning experiences for young children.
Such evidence should come from tools that must be both based on
research and empirically tested to ensure that they are valid, reliable,
and linked to children's learning outcomes. Based on the inquiries
that colleagues and I receive about the existence (or lack thereof) of
such evaluation tools, it is clear that there is a very real demand in
the field. Instruments that measure classroom supports for science
learning in a comprehensive way will be of use as objective measures
that can be used to compare classrooms, curricula, and programs using a
common ruler, allowing us to evaluate these in a rigorous way and to
answer the questions first posed in the introduction: Are the informal
and formal preschool science education programs that we develop
effective for meeting our goals for children's learning? Are some
more effective than others? What are the materials and instructional
interactions that typify a science-minded classroom? How do we get the
most "bang" for our limited educational buck? How do we ensure
that each child has appropriate learning opportunities that build on,
and extend, the excitement, enthusiasm, content knowledge, and reasoning
skills that he or she brings to the scientific endeavor?
Conclusion
Assessment in preschool justifiably concerns many people; they
worry about the negative effects of certain kinds of assessments on
young children. They fear that students experience feelings of
inadequacy, confusion, pressure, or boredom if they are tested. The
assessments described here include some that take advantage of the work
products, conversation, and activities that are naturally part of
children's experiences during the course of a typical preschool
day. Other assessments may require that children take time out of their
day, but these are often designed to be game-like and interesting for
children. Assessment of young children also raises concerns if data from
preschoolers, whose performances are more variable than those of older
learners and who do not know the "importance" of performing
well, are used to inform high stakes decisions about program and school
effectiveness. As with assessment more generally, it is critical that
the instruments be used for the purposes for which they were designed.
Reviews of these issues can be found in recent review volumes (Brassard
& Boehm, 2007; Snow & Van Hemel, 2008).
While this article in no way dismisses these important concerns,
assessment is not optional for preschool science education. The question
is not if we will assess science learning but how we can do so in ways
that are appropriate for the questions being asked by teachers,
administrators, researchers, and policy makers; that are viewed as
useful by those who work in classrooms, administration, research, and
policy; and that fit as seamlessly as possible into the lives of the
learners being assessed.
The field currently lacks adequate instrumentation in early
science, but progress is being made, both in the assessments available
and in the ways that early childhood professionals can support young
science learners. Much of this work, however, resides outside of the
published literature; thus, one goal of this article is to start a
conversation about the current state of early science assessment
instruments, with the expectation that others will add to the inventory
begun here. Together, those of us who study science learning and those
who teach young science learners can generate a blueprint for the
assessment toolkit that must be developed if we are to fully support the
preschoolers of today as they learn and grow into the students,
citizens, and STEM professionals of tomorrow.
Acknowledgments
This paper was originally prepared for the STEM in Early Education
and Development (SEED) Conference held in May 2010 at the University of
Northern Iowa, organized by Betty Zan. Many thanks to Betty and to
Ingrid Chalufour, Nancy Clark-Chiarelli, Daryl Greenfield, Michele
Maier, and Jamie Jirout for sharing details about their work. I thank
Ellen Frede and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on earlier
drafts. Their generosity and suggestions improved the paper; any errors
are mine alone. [Editors' note: Other papers from the SEED
Conference are available in ECRP's Beyond This Issue section.]
References
American Honda Foundation. (2010). Retrieved April 3, 2010, from
http://corporate.honda.com/america/philanthropy.aspx?id=ahf
Barack Obama and Joe Biden's plan for lifetime success through
education. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2011, from
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/PreK-12EducationFactSheet.pdf
Barnett, W. Steven. (2008). Preschool education and its lasting
effects: Research and policy implications. Boulder, CO, & Tempe, AZ:
Education and Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research
Unit. Retrieved December 11, 2008, from
http://epicpolicy.org/publication/preschool-education
Editor's note: This url has changed:
http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/preschool-education
Beering, Steven C. (2009). Actions to improve science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for all American students
[Letter from the National Science Board STEM education outlining
recommendations for the President-Elect Obama administration]. Retrieved
January 1, 2009, from
http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/publications/2009/01_10_stem_rec_obama.pdf
Bergan, John Richard; Burnham, Christine Guerrera; Feld, Jason K.;
& Bergan, John Robert. (2009). The Galileo Pre-K online system for
the electronic management of learning. Tucson, AZ: Assessment
Technology. Retrieved March 22, 2011, from
http://www.ati-online.com/galileopreschool/PreWelcomeTechManual.html
Bowman, Barbara T.; Donovan, M. Suzanne; & Burns, M. Susan
(Eds.). (2001). Eager to learn: Educating our preschoolers. Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
Brassard, Marla R., & Boehm, Ann E. (2007). Preschool
assessment: Principles and practices. New York: Guilford Press.
Brenneman, Kimberly; Boller, Kimberly; Atkins-Burnett, Sally;
Stipek, Deborah; Forry, Nicki; Ertle, Barbina; et al. (in press).
Measuring the quality of early childhood math and science curricula and
teaching. In Martha Zaslow, Ivelisse Martinez-Beck, Kathryn Tout, &
Tamara Halle (Eds.), Quality measurement in early childhood settings.
Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Brenneman, Kimberly; Stevenson-Boyd, Judi; & Frede, Ellen C.
(2009). Math and science in preschool: Policies and practice. Preschool
Policy Brief, 19. New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early
Education Research.
Brenneman, Kimberly; Stevenson-Garcia, Judi; Frede, Ellen;&
Jung, Kwanghee. (2011, April). Assessing instructional quality for
science and math: Preschool Rating Instrument for Science and
Mathematics (PRISM). Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the
Society for Research in Child Development, Montreal.
Burchinal, Margaret; Howes, Carollee; Pianta, Robert; Bryant,
Donna; Early, Diane; Clifford, Richard; et al. (2008). Predicting child
outcomes at the end of kindergarten from the quality of pre-kindergarten
teacher-child interactions and instruction. Applied Developmental
Science, 12(3), 140-153.
Callanan, Maureen A., & Oakes, Lisa M. (1992).
Preschoolers' questions and parents' explanations: Causal
thinking in everyday activity. Cognitive Development, 7(2), 213-233.
Chalufour, Ingrid; Worth, Karen; & Clark-Chiarelli, Nancy.
(2006). Science teaching environment rating scale (STERS). Newton, MA:
Education Development Center.
Chittenden, Edward, & Jones, Jacqueline. (1999). Science
assessment in early childhood programs. In Dialogue on early childhood
science, mathematics, and technology education. Washington, DC: Project
2061, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Clark-Chiarelli, Nancy; Gropen, Jess; Chalufour, Ingrid;
Hoisington, Cynthia; Fuccillo, Janna; & Thieu, Yen. (2011, April).
Assessing teacher and classroom outcomes form a professional development
program in science for preschool teachers. Paper presented at the
biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development,
Montreal.
Committee for Economic Development. (2006). The economic promise of
investing in high-quality preschool: Using early education to improve
economic growth and the fiscal sustainability of states and the nation.
Washington, DC: Author.
Dichtelmiller, Margo L.; Jablon, Judy R.; Marsden, Dorothea B.;
& Meisels, Samuel J. (2001). The work sampling system omnibus
guidelines: Preschool through third grade (4th ed.). New York: Rebus.
Dunn, Lloyd M., & Dunn, Leota M. (1997). Peabody picture
vocabulary test, third edition (PPVT--1II). Circle Pines, MN: American
Guidance Service.
Duschl, Richard A.; Schweingruber, Heidi A.; & Shouse, Andrew
W. (2007). Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in
grades K-8. Washington, DC: National Academies Press; Board on Science
Education, Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education.
Edmiaston, Rebecca. (2002). Assessing and documenting learning in
constructivist classrooms. In Rheta DeVries, Betty Zan, Carolyn
Hildebrandt, Rebecca Edmiaston, & Christina Sales (Eds.), Developing
constructivist early childhood curriculum: Practical principles and
activities (pp. 53-67). New York: Teachers College Press.
Educational Testing Service. (n.d.). PATHWISE understanding early
science learning. Princeton, NJ: Author. Frede, Ellen; Stevenson-Garcia,
J., & Brenneman, Kimberly. (2010). Self-evaluation for science and
math education (SESAME). New Brunswick, NJ: Author.
French, Lucia. (2004). Science as the center of a coherent,
integrated early childhood curriculum. Early Childhood Research
Quarterly, 19(1), 138-149.
Gelman, Rochel; Brenneman, Kimberly; Macdonald, Gay; & Roman,
Moises. (2009). Preschool pathways to science (PrePS): Facilitating
scientific ways of thinking, talking, doing, and understanding.
Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.
Greenfield, Daryl B.; Dominguez, Ximena; Greenberg, Ariela;
Fuccillo, Janna;& Maier, Michelle F. (2011, April). Assessing
science readiness in young low-income preschool children. Paper
presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child
Development, Montreal.
Greenfield, Daryl B.; Dominguez, Ximena; Fuccillo, Janna M.; Maier,
Michelle F.; Greenberg, Ariela C.; & Penfield, Randall. (2009,
April). Development of an IRT-based direct assessment of preschool
science. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for
Research in Child Development, Denver, CO.
Greenfield, Daryl B.; Jirout, Jamie; Dominguez, Ximena; Greenberg,
Ariela; Maier, Michelle; & Fuccillo, Janna. (2009). Science in the
preschool classroom: A programmatic research agenda to improve science
readiness. Early Education and Development, 20(2), 238-264.
Haahr, Jens Henrik (with Nielsen, Thomas Kibak; Hansen, Martin
Eggert; & Jakobsen, Soren Teglegaard). (2005). Explaining student
performance: Evidence from the international PISA, TIMMS, and PIRLS
surveys. Danish Technological Institute. Retrieved December 12, 2008,
from http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/5/45/35920726.pdf
Halle, Tamara, & Vick, Jessica. (2007). Quality in early
childhood care and education settings: A compendium of measures.
Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation.
Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services.
Harms, Thelma; Clifford, Richard M.; & Cryer, Debby. (2005).
Early childhood environment rating scale (Rev. ed.). New York: Teachers
College Press.
Hatano, Giyoo, & Inagaki, Kayoko. (1994). Young children's
naive theory of biology. Cognition, 50, 171-188.
HighScope Educational Research Foundation. (2003). The preschool
child observation record (COR). Ypsilanti, MI: HighScope Press.
Jirout, Jamie, & Klahr, David. (2010a, June). Assessing and
validating measures of curiosity in preschool children. Poster presented
at the Fifth Annual Institute of Education Sciences Research Conference,
National Harbor, MD.
Jirout, Jamie, & Klahr, David. (2010b). The measurement of
curiosity: A review of the literature. Manuscript in preparation.
Maier, Michelle F.; Greenfield, Daryl B.; & Bulotsky-Shearer,
Rebecca J. (2011, April). Development and initial validation of a
preschool teachers' attitudes and beliefs toward science
questionnaire. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society
for Research in Child Development, Montreal
Melhuish, Edward C.; Sylva, Kathy; Sammons, Pam; Siraj-Blatchford,
Iram; Taggart, Brenda; Phan, Mai B.; et al. (2008). Preschool influences
on mathematics achievement. Science, 321(5893), 1161-1162. Retrieved
March 24, 2011, from
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5893/1161
Editor's note: This url has changed:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/321/5893/1161.full
Motorola Foundation. (n.d.). Innovation generation grants.
Retrieved March 22, 2011, from
http://responsibility.motorola.com/index.php/
society/comminvest/education/igg/
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (n.d.).
Standard 2: NAEYC accreditation criteria for curriculum. Retrieved March
22, 2011, from https://oldweb.naeyc.org/academy/standards/standard2/
National Education Goals Panel. (1995). Reconsidering
children's early development and learning: Toward common views and
vocabulary. Washington, DC: Author.
National Research Council. (2005). Mathematical and scientific
development in early childhood: A workshop summary. Washington, DC:
National Academies Press.
PNC Foundation. (2009). PNC Grow Up Great collaborates with 14
science centers to boost science skills of preschoolers. Downloaded
April 3, 2010, from http://www.pncgrowupgreat.com/media/downloads/
PNC_GrowUpGreat_SciencePressRelease.pdf
Riechard, Donald E. (1973). A decade of preschool science:
Promises, problems, and perspectives. Science Education, 57(4), 437-451.
Riley-Ayers, Shannon; Stevenson-Garcia, Judi; Frede, Ellen; &
Brenneman, Kimberly. (in press). Early learning scale. Anaheim, CA:
Lakeshore Learning.
Ruffman, Ted; Perner, Josef; Olson, David R.; & Doherty,
Martin. (1993). Reflecting on scientific thinking: Children's
understanding of the hypothesis-evidence relation. Child Development,
64(6), 1617-1636.
Scott-Little, Catherine; Lesko, Jim; Martella, Jana; & Milburn,
Penny. (2007). Early learning standards: Results from a national survey
to document trends in state-level policies and practices. Early
Childhood Research & Practice, 9(1). Retrieved March 22, 2011, from
http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/v9n1/little.html
Shonkoff, Jack P., & Phillips, Deborah A. (Eds.). (2000). From
neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Snow, Catherine E., & Van Hemel, Susan B. (Eds.). (2008). Early
childhood assessment: Why, what, and how. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press.
Sodian, Beate; Zaitchik, Deborah; & Carey, Susan. (1991). Young
children's differentiation of hypothetical beliefs from evidence.
Child Development, 62(4), 753-766.
Stevenson-Garcia, Judi; Brenneman, Kimberly; Frede, Ellen; &
Weber, Marcie. (2010). Preschool rating instrument for science and
mathematics (PRISM). New Brunswick, NJ: National Institute for Early
Education Research.
Sylva, Kathy; Siraj-Blatchford, Iram; & Taggart, Brenda.
(2003). Assessing quality in the early years: Early childhood
environmental rating scale extension (ECERS-E). Stoke-on-Trent, UK:
Trentham Books.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on
Children, Youth and Families/Head Start Bureau. (2003). The Head Start
path to positive child outcomes. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved
December 12, 2008, from
http://www.ecechicago.org/resources/pdfs/headstart01.pdf
Van Egeren, Laurie A.; Watson, Dyane P.; & Morris, Bradley J.
(2008, June). Head start on science: The impact of an early childhood
science curriculum. Paper presented at the Ninth National Head Start
Research Conference, Washington, DC.
Worth, Karen, & Grollman, Sharon. (2003). Worms, shadows, and
whirlpools: Science in the early childhood classroom. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann.
Kimberly Brenneman
Rutgers University
National Institute for Early Education Research
Kimberly Brenneman, Ph.D.
National Institute for Early Education Research
120 Albany St.
Suite 500
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Telephone: 732-932-4350, ext. 239
Fax: 732-932-4360
Email: kbrenneman@nieer.org
Author Information
Kimberly Brenneman conducts research on early science and
mathematics learning and supports for these in preschool classrooms. Her
work at NIEER involves the development and validation of assessments of
instructional quality and learning and the design of professional
development resources to improve teaching in science and mathematics.
Dr. Brenneman is an author of Preschool Pathways to Science (PrePS):
Facilitating Scientific Ways of Thinking, Talking, Doing, and
Understanding (Brookes Publishing). She also serves as an education
advisor for Sid the Science Kid, a PBS television series and Web site
that promote exploration, discovery, and science readiness among young
children.