The provision of progress monitoring within publicly funded early childhood classrooms is legally required, supported by empirical research, and recommended by early childhood professional organizations, for teachers providing Part B services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Despite the widespread recognition of progress…

Regression discontinuity (RD) designs have gained significant popularity as a quasi-experimental device for evaluating education programs and policies. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of RD designs, focusing on the continuity-based framework, the most widely adopted RD framework. We first review the fundamental aspects of RD…

Engaging in design thinking activities has been increasingly viewed as important for the craft of teaching for early childhood practitioners. However, reliable and valid measurements for this are lacking. As such, this research aims to develop and validate a design thinking engagement scale (DTES) to assess teachers' engagement in design thinking.…

The Preschool Early Numeracy Skills Test--Brief Version (PENS-B) is a measure of early numeracy skills, developed and mainly used in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the factorial validity and measurement invariance across gender of PENS-B in the Greek educational context. PENS-B was administered to 906 preschool…

Instructional coaching, informed by observation tools that measure teachers' practices, has been effective in improving teaching quality in early learning programs. However, existing measurement tools limit teachers' abilities to implement this type of instructional coaching at scale. To address this challenge, a team at SRI Education, along with…

Average age of autism diagnosis exceeds four years (Maenner et al., 2020), delaying access to services and limiting early developmental research (Zwaigenbaum et al., 2015; Fletcher-Watson et al., 2017). Autism screening in early childhood settings may be a tool for enabling earlier, equitable diagnosis. This systematic review investigated the…

A major challenge to promoting effective early science and engineering education is the lack of reliable and validated assessments that align with current educational guidelines for science and engineering. Existing early science and engineering assessments either cover a narrow range of concepts and practices and/or are not designed in a way to…

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of sustainable environmental activities aimed at preschool children on raising environmental awareness. The research was conducted at Baglarbasi Kindergarten in the Haliliye district of Sanliurfa Province, Turkey. A total of 101 children aged 4-5 years participated in the study. Sustainable…

The period of a child's growth and development that is most notable is from 0 to 8 years old. These are the years when all that is learned is laid down. Putting strong foundations in place today will yield big dividends later. Greater learning in the classroom and better educational results have a positive social and economic impact on society.…

In the last 30 years, 4 distinct theoretical approaches have been described for early childhood science education. The approaches are, empiricist, Piagetian, socio-cognitive and socio-cultural. Drawing on the differences among these approaches regarding the theoretical framework adopted in teaching, the role that is assigned to the teacher during…

This study aimed to create and validate a scale for early childhood educators that reflects the cultural sensitivity of educators in classrooms. We collected data from 403 early childhood educators in Adiyaman, Turkey. Experts' assessments were consulted for content validity, and EFA and CFA were done for the reliability and validity of the scale.…

The importance of improving teachers' use of culturally responsive practice (CRP) in the classroom setting has been widely recognized. Although quantitative data on teachers' use of CRP has potential to be a helpful decision-making tool in advancing that goal, little is known about the psychometrics of classroom-based CRP measures, their utility…

This study aimed to develop the "Social Skills Assessment Scale--Teacher Form" (SOSAS--TF) for preschool children. Data were collected from three distinct groups of participants. The first dataset, obtained from 254 preschool children, was collected during a "preliminary trial." The second dataset, gathered from 896 preschool…

Distance education has added a different dimension to the change in the use of ICT (information and communication technologies) in the early childhood education paradigms in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes before and during the pandemic will also affect education in the post-pandemic period and this is why research in…

Research from numerous studies worldwide consistently shows that integrating social emotional learning (SEL) development into the structures and practices of schools is a path to creating safe, supportive, and inclusive environments. Researchers developed and validated an instrument to examine teachers' perceptions of SEL needs in their schools;…