Abstract
Background: The Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM) assesses early learning programme outcomes in children aged 50-69 months. ELOM assesses gross motor development (GMD), fine motor coordination and visual motor integration (FMC VMI), emergent numeracy and mathematics (ENM), cognition and executive functioning (CEF), and emergent literacy and language (ELL). Content and construct validity, reliability and cross-cultural fairness have been established.Aim: To establish the test-retest reliability and concurrent validity of the ELOM.Setting: Low income preschool and Grade R children.Methods: In study one, Test-retest reliability was investigated in a convenience sample of 49 English and isiXhosa speaking preschool children (Mean age = 60.77 months, SD = 3.70) tested and retested one week apart. In study two, concurrent validity was investigated in a convenience sample of 62 children (Mean age = 75.05 months, SD = .75). ELOM performance was compared with that on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV).Results: Test-retest reliability was established for ELOM Total score (r = .90, p .001). The concurrent validity of ELOM Total and the WPPSI-IV Full Scale Composite scores was established (r = .64, p .001). FMC VMI, CEF, and ELL domains correlated significantly with their corresponding WPPSI-IV indices: visual spatial, fluid reasoning, processing speed, working memory, and verbal comprehension.Conclusion: The findings of both psychometric studies contribute further to the reliability and validity of the ELOM.
Highlights
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.2. states that by 2030 countries should ‘ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education’ (United Nations n.d.)
Replication with children from the full range of socio-economic backgrounds is recommended
The Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM) was developed because of the lack of standardised instruments in South Africa suitable for measuring early learning programme effects and children’s readiness to learn in the Grade R year (Snelling et al 2019). It is the first psychometrically robust population-level South African instrument that can be administered by trained nonprofessionals at low cost, which is used to assess preschool children from across a wide range of socio-economic and ethnolinguistic backgrounds
Summary
United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.2. states that by 2030 countries should ‘ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education’ (United Nations n.d.). A key requirement of efforts to assess this outcome is the availability of reliable and valid population-level instruments suitable for children from a wide range of ethnolinguistic backgrounds, which can be used to track country attainment of SDG Goal 4.2. The Early Learning Outcomes Measure (ELOM) was developed to address the need for a locally validated, culturally fair and standardised instrument and has been used in studies of early learning programme outcomes. As Snelling et al (2019) note in recent years, several international efforts have been made to generate instruments to measure language, numeracy cognition and motor development in 3–5-year-old children. Reliability and cross-cultural fairness have been established
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