What Are the Purposes of Assessment?

Question

Answer

Here are the five main purposes of assessment.

Guides Planning

Hopefully, and I want to preface all of these with hopefully, your assessment is helping guide your planning. When you become aware that an activity is ineffective, you can either eliminate the activity or modify it to be more effective. Being aware of the developmental level of each child will help in planning activities for the entire class. I know there were times where I planned an activity for my classroom and I was so excited. I could not wait for these kids to do this activity and play with this certain material or toy that I put out. However, when the kids saw it, it just flopped.

I'll never forget one time when I was setting up the dramatic play center in my classroom. I had a dramatic play center and I also had a home living center. Home living was where my kitchen was and my baby dolls and the food and all that stuff. My dramatic play was really my imagination area. If you have the space in your classroom, it's a really cool thing to do. I was at a thrift store and found a headset with a microphone like you would wear for an online meeting or for online gaming. This was way back before you could get them anywhere. I got it and thought, "Oh, that's so cool. I'll put that in home living." At the time we had a hair salon in the dramatic play area and I thought, "Oh, one of the kids can pretend like they're taking appointments. It'll be so cute. Oh my gosh, I just love it."

I went back to school the next day and I put the headset in the dramatic play area and hung around and waited to see how they were going to use it. Something happened on the other side of the room so I went and dealt with that and came back. As I was coming back, I heard, "Do you want fries with that?" It was completely opposite of how I intended for them to use the material, but they were using the material in a way that was meaningful to them. That would have been a helpful piece for assessment.

Sometimes you set up a great activity or material that you're super excited about and the kids just don't buy it. Other times you can flippantly put something out and the kids are like, "Wow, that's the coolest thing ever." Hopefully, you’re using the assessment data that you're getting from the observations and engagements with children to then go back and plan more activities like the one that the children really engaged. You may have to change activities based on the fact that it flopped, but use that data or information to guide your planning and how you set up the classroom for the children, as well as how you set up activities for them.

Shares Information with Others

Assessment shares information with others. Assessment of each child provides us as educators with knowledge that can be shared with our colleagues, administrators, families, or other stakeholders. You might be in a program that reports to your state or to the federal government, depending on reporting requirements.

Colleagues might be able to use the information as children change classrooms or to possibly benefit another group of children. It may be something as simple as, Oh, this worked for me, or this didn't work for me. This is something you might try with this child. Or this is something that we found was successful.

Administrators often times are interested in how children are learning and developing because they're the ones that are in charge of making sure that the program is doing what it should do, such as benefiting children, teaching children the things that they need to know, and showing how we as educators are using that assessment information. Are we taking that information and saying, "Okay, how can we really glean some meaning out of this data?" or are we just taking the data and just filing it away in a file cabinet?

In addition, families can work with us as the educator to help the child continue developing their skills at home. Ideally, we would be in partnerships with families to make sure that families were on the same page that we were on, as well as to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to make a seamless transition for the child.

Supports Learning and Instruction

We should be intentional when we're creating lesson plans. I would be lying to you if I said I have never filled out a lesson plan and just said, oh my gosh, what am I going to put in this square of the lesson plan? I would be telling you a fib if I said I'd never felt like that. As I grew as a professional, I became more aware of the importance of the work that I was doing. As I became more aware of the abilities of these children, I really started to be more intentional about what I put in each blank of that lesson plan. I wanted to make sure that I had a goal in mind for every lesson. Everything that I put out on the shelf had a goal in mind.

Again, just like with the headset that I put out in dramatic play, the goal might not have been met, or my hope or idea of how it should be used might not have been met. However, the children used it in a way that was meaningful for them and so that was meaningful for me. If we have a goal in mind for every lesson and if we're intentional about the things that we're putting on the lesson plan, then the assessment can help us as the educator determine if that goal has been met.

Identify Children Who May Need Additional Services

After becoming familiar with the children in your classroom, it might become apparent that a particular child might need some further assessment or additional services by another professional. Assessment is a helpful way to find out this information. If we're not gleaning some meaning out of this assessment data and saying, "Okay, what is this telling us?" then we're just filing it away and doing the assessment because it's on our job description. If this happens, then we're missing opportunities to catch some children who might need additional services, such as speech therapy, physical therapy, behavior modification help, occupational therapy, or ABA therapy.

There are many different options out there. As you know, the sooner the intervention happens, the more likely it is to be successful for young children. There might be times when a medical professional, child development specialist, or therapist will need to evaluate the child and administer a developmental screening. It depends on the situation. It also is going to depend on your particular program's policies. It is important to find out what your program's policies are in terms of that.

According to NAEYC and NAECS/SDE (2003), a screening is the use of a brief procedure or instrument designed to identify, from within a large population of children, those children who may need further assessment to verify development and/or health risks. Essentially, screening tools are developed and used on thousands of children to determine the bell curve or the norm. Then you can see if the child falls above or below that norm, then you can look at what interventions are needed. In a nutshell that's kind of how it works. Those situations might come up out of your assessment process.

Remember to consult with the family first and receive permission before, and communicate often throughout the process with the family. Discovering that your child may be in need of additional services can be really confusing for parents. It can also be alarming. It's important that we are supportive and understanding and there as the touchstone for the family. Oftentimes, medical practitioners and pediatricians may not have the same relationship with the family that we do. We work so hard in early childhood to develop that close bond and relationship, which helps with communicating with families in many situations, including those like this.

Here are some examples of commonly used published developmental screening tools.

• The Ages & Stages Questionnaire®, Third Edition (ASQ-3) https://agesandstages.com/
• Batelle® Developmental Inventory™, Third Edition (BDI-3) https://riversideinsights.com/battelle_3e
• Brigance® www.curriculumassociates.com/products/brigance/early-childhood
• Denver II
• Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning, Fourth Edition (DIAL™-4) www.pearsonassessments.com
• Early Screening Inventory, Third Edition (ESI™-3) www.pearsonassessments.com
• Learning Accomplishment Profile™ – Diagnostic (LAP-D) www.kaplanco.com/lap

There are several of those that I have actually used that have been really helpful, easy to complete, and easy to understand. That's helpful when you are trying to get information about a child. Depending on your state and your program, you may have a co-op or other group that would come in and assess the children using these tools.

Evaluates the Classroom/Program

Assessments can also help evaluate the classroom or the program. The Environmental Rating Scales (ERS) is a published tool used to evaluate the classroom and the program. The ERS includes four scales that assess early childhood environments.

• Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS-3)
• Infant/Toddler Environmental Rating Scale (ITERS-3)
• Family Child Care Environmental Rating Scale – Revised (FCCERS-R)
• School-Age Care Environmental Rating Scale Updated (SACERS) https://ers.fpg.unc.edu/environment-rating-scales

Using the Environmental Rating Scales, you may find you evaluate the quality of your environment or the learning engagement level of your classroom specifically. For example, what materials do you have on the shelf? What centers do you have? How's the program set up?

While the Environmental Rating Scales assesses your environment, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, also known as CLASS, assesses educator-student interactions. The class assessment actually assesses the interactions that the student has with the caregiver and vice versa. It looks at the overall tone of the program or the classroom. Is it a positive place to be? Is it a happy kind of environment for children?

In addition to the CLASS, there is also the Program Administration Scale (PAS) that measures leadership and management functions of center-based early care and education programs. The PAS assesses programs for benefits that they offer their staff and levels of pay. Are there different levels of responsibility that staff can work themselves up to? Do they encourage and reimburse for education?

• Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) assesses educator-student interactions.   https://teachstone.com/class/
• Program Administration Scale (PAS) measures both leadership and management functions of center-based early care and education programs. https://mccormickcenter.nl.edu/services/program-evaluation/

This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the course, Purposes and Benefits of Assessment, presented by Natasha Crosby Kile, MS.