There are five goal domains in early childhood education that are worthy of evaluation. Three criteria should be used in judging goal statements: intrusiveness (does the goal intrude upon a basic need?); worthiness (what makes the goal worth pursuing?); and source (where do the goals come from?). (Author/LC)

Two politically oriented factors are cited as major impediments to effective conveyance of evaluation findings to decision makers. The first factor, relevance, includes the elements of timing and matching of perceptions. The second, constituency support, includes recognition of reference groups and political benefits. (Author/LC)

Actual and potential contributions from the fields of anthropology, sociology, ecological and environmental psychology, and ethology to measurement and evaluation, particularly in early childhood education, are discussed. The diversity and potency of these approaches suggest that a multidisciplinary, eclectic approach to finding measures for…

Three basic questions about early childhood evaluation are raised: (1) what is to be evaluated, including a discussion of product versus process evaluations; (2) who is to do the evaluating, including comments on external versus staff evaluations; and (3) for what purpose is the evaluation to be conducted, including a discussion of summative…

Concerns about the use of evaluation in early childhood education are clustered around some basic issues: the use of standardized tests with young children, the diversity of dimensions of early childhood education that should be evaluated, the relationship of early childhood evaluation to social policy, and the very nature of early childhood…