The ECLS-K assesses children’s cognitive, social/emotional, and physical development through direct and indirect methods. Direct child assessment scores refer to children’s performance on the ECLS-K cognitive and social/emotional batteries. Indirect child assessments refer to parent and teacher ratings of children’s cognitive and social/emotional development. Physical development is measured directly.
For more information on the direct child assessments, please view the Kindergarten and First Grade Psychometric Report, the Third Grade Psychometric Report, and/or the Fifth Grade Psychometric Report.
The direct cognitive assessments were designed to measure a child’s knowledge at given time points, as well as track their academic growth in each of three subjects. The assessments for reading (language and literacy) and mathematics measure growth from fall-kindergarten through the eighth grade. The assessment for general knowledge (knowledge of the social, biological, and physical worlds) measures growth from fall-kindergarten through spring first grade. Science assessments measure knowledge of the sciences in the third, fifth, and eighth grades.
The ECLS-K assesses skills that are typically taught and developmentally important. The assessment frameworks were derived from national and state standards, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Science, and the scope and sequence documents from state assessments. The ECLS-K assessments included items that were specifically created for the study, items adapted from commercial assessments with copyright permission, and other NCES studies including items from NAEP (disclosed items), NELS:88, and ELS:2002.
The ECLS-K direct cognitive assessments are two-stage adaptive tests; all children begin a subject area test with a routing test followed by a second-stage form. The routing test comprises quickly administered items spread over a broad range of difficulty. The routing test score determines the difficulty level of the second-stage test form assigned to the child. Items found in the second-stage forms include items that overlap between the adjacent forms. The common routing test and the item overlap between adjacent second-stage forms help to ensure that there are a sufficient number of items to precisely measure the child’s skills.
The direct cognitive assessment scores include broad-based measures that report children’s knowledge and skills in each subject area as a whole, as well as targeted scores reflecting knowledge of selected content or mastery within a set of hierarchical skill levels. The different types of scores include number-right scores, Item Response Theory scale scores (IRT), standardized scores (T-scores), item cluster scores, and proficiency level scores.
The two-stage, adaptive assessment format helps ensure that children are tested with a set of items most appropriate to their level of achievement and minimizes the potential for floor and ceiling effects. The kindergarten through fifth-grade assessments are computer-assisted and individually administered by a trained assessor whereas the eighth grade assessments are self-administered paper and pencil tests.
The reading assessment is designed to measure basic skills such as print familiarity, letter recognition, beginning and ending sounds, recognition of common words (sight vocabulary), and decoding multisyllabic words; vocabulary knowledge such as receptive vocabulary and vocabulary-in-context; and passage comprehension. Across the full set of grade level assessments, the passages represent a variety of literary genres such a poetry, letters, fiction, and nonfiction. The assessment begins with relatively more emphasis on basic reading skills during the kindergarten and first grade, while greater emphasis is placed on comprehension in the third, fifth, and eighth grades.
The mathematics assessment is designed to measure conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, and problem solving within specific content strands. Across the full set of grade level assessments, the content strands include number sense, properties, and operations; measurement; geometry and spatial sense; data analysis, statistics, and probability; and patterns, algebra, and functions. Of these, number sense, properties, and operations strand is the largest of all the content strands at all grade level assessments.
The general knowledge and science assessment domain includes items that measure knowledge and skills in the natural sciences and social studies. The K-1 assessment measures general knowledge. It comprises items measuring knowledge and skills in the natural sciences and social studies. In the third-, fifth-, and eighth-grades, only science is measured. Equal emphasis is placed on earth and space science, physical science, and life science. Unlike the reading and mathematics assessments, no proficiency levels were developed for the K-1 general knowledge or the third, fifth, and eighth grade science assessments. Since the general knowledge and science assessments measure different content, scores between the K-1 general knowledge are not on the same scale with the third-, fifth-, and eighth-grade science battery. Several item cluster scores based on small subsets of items linked to particular content areas are reported for the science assessments.
The ECLS-K social and emotional development assessments focus on aspects of social competence, including social skills (e.g., cooperation, assertion, responsibility, and self-control) and problem behaviors (e.g., impulsivity and aggression). Parents and teachers are the primary sources of information on children’s social competence and skills in kindergarten and first grade.
In the third, fifth, and eighth grades, children rate their perceptions of competence; interest in reading, mathematics, and "all school subjects" by completing the Self-Description Questionnaire (SDQ). They also rate their perceived competence and popularity with peers and indicate behaviors that might interfere with their academic and social competence.
Children’s height and weight is measured at each data collection period. Additionally, in the fall of kindergarten, children demonstrate their fine and gross motor skills through such activities as building structures with blocks, copying shapes, drawing figures, balancing, hopping, skipping, and walking backwards.
