Characteristics of child-teacher interactions, such as use of the teacher as a source of support and help, are related to gains in children’s performance in early childhood classrooms ( Matsumura, Patthey-Chavez, Valdes, & Garnier, 2002 NICHD ECCRN, 2005 Nelson-LeGall & Resnick, 1998). The inCLASS addresses three specific dimensions of behavior within interactions with teachers, including positive engagement (or approach), communicative efficacy, and expressed conflict.Ĭhildren’s positive engagement and connection with adults in early education settings have reliable and detectable relationships with children’s achievement and social competence both concurrently and in elementary school (e.g., Burchinal, Peisner-Feinberg, Pianta, & Howes, 2002 Howes, Phillipsen, & Peisner-Feinberg, 2000 Meyer, Wardrop, Hastings, & Linn, 1993 NICHD ECCRN, 1996 NICHD ECCRN, 2003 NICHD ECCRN, 2004b Peisner-Feinberg & Burchinal, 1997). In particular, preliminary evidence will be reported of the extent to which the inCLASS meets the following psychometric criteria in a sample of 3-, 4-, and 5-year old children: inter-rater reliability, normal distributions and adequate range, construct validity, and criterion-related validity (concurrent and discriminant).įor young children, social/relational and expressive language skills expressed within adult-child interactions are among the best predictors of children’s success in the early school years and even into late elementary school ( Barth & Parke, 1993 Denham, 1993 Morrison, Rimm-Kaufman, & Pianta, 2003 NICHD ECCRN, 2002, 2004a, 2005 Pianta & Harbers, 1996 Welsh, Parke, Widaman, & O’Neil, 2001). By pairing this conceptual framework for a child’s classroom interactions with recent advancements in the development of reliable, valid observational methods, this paper introduces the newly developed Individualized Classroom Assessment Scoring System (inCLASS), a system for observation that targets children’s interactions in preschool classrooms with teachers (i.e., Positive Engagement with the Teacher, Teacher Conflict, and Teacher Communication), peers (i.e., Peer Sociability, Peer Conflict, Peer Assertiveness, and Peer Communication), and tasks (i.e., Engagement within Tasks and Self-Reliance see Table 1). Growing consensus in the field indicates that children engage in classroom interactions that reflect patterns of adaptation to three core developmental tasks-competent exchanges with teachers, peers, and tasks-that in turn relate to building effective social relationships and acquiring skills/knowledge through instructional opportunities (see Bruner, 1966 Pianta, 1999 or Sroufe, 1996 for a discussion of developmental tasks and global patterns of function). Until recently, however, the development of classroom observational systems for describing early childhood competencies has been slowed by a lack of consensus around developmentally appropriate constructs and limits to observational methodology. #Classroom assessment scoring system indicators preschool professional#However, much of what we know about children’s relationship, self-regulatory, and language competencies come from retroactive, informant-report surveys and one-on-one, standardized assessments, without real-time observational data about how behaviors are expressed in early childhood classroom interactions.įrom the perspective of a number of leading investigators, using standardized procedures to gather process-oriented, observationally-based information on children’s competence in classroom interactions adheres to key professional standards for multi-method assessment and provides unique information on school adjustment that complements other existing measures ( Meisels, Xue, & Shamblott, in press Merrell, 1999 Neisworth & Bagnato, 2004). These findings underscore the contention of Pianta and Walsh (1996) and others ( Ladd, 2005 Howes & James, 2002) that early childhood skills and abilities develop within child-context interactions, including those with adults, peers, and learning activities/materials. A generation of longitudinal studies point to the importance for early school success of social relationships, self-regulation (e.g., attention) during interactions with materials, and language development, all of which involve behaviors embedded within home or classroom contexts (e.g., Blair, 2002 Burchinal, Peisner-Feinberg, Pianta, & Howes, 2002 Duncan et al., 2007 Hamre & Pianta, 2001 Ladd, 2005 NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003 Wasik, Bond, & Hindman, 2006).
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