Reliability of Bracken School Readiness Assessment, Third Edition Scores With Young Children in Mumbai, India

Abstract

To effectively provide early interventions to children, identifying those who are in need of these interventions is essential. In India, several problems hinder the process of early identification, including a lack of standardized measures for assessment. This study investigates the utility of the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, Third Edition (BSRA-3; Bracken, 2007) with an urban sample of children ages 3 to 5 years (N = 254) attending school in Mumbai, India. Reliability of BSRA-3 scores was assessed using coefficient alpha and split-half coefficients. Potentially problematic or biased items were identified using item analysis indexes of difficulty and discrimination. The BSRA-3 test scores with the Indian (Mumbai) population were reliable, and raw score means and rank orders were comparable with those for the U.S. normative sample. None of the test items on the test function differently with the Mumbai, India sample, thus providing initial evidence of BSRA-3's applicability with the Indian population.