Education Endowment Foundation:How to use the Early Years measures database

How to use the Early Years measures database

Guidance on using the Early Years measures database

The review and guidance document below gives a detailed explanation of how the Early Years Measures database was developed as well as providing valuable insight into the issues surrounding early years assessments. It also provides a glossary of terms as well as an explanation of the star rating system for all measures.

A two-stage review of measures was conducted by a team led by Professor Julie Dockrell at the UCL Institute of Education at stage one, a long list of 146 measures was found and then evaluated. The team looked at the following criteria agreed upon by the UCL Institute of Education team and the EEF — to establish if the measure was robust enough to go through to the next stage of the review:

  • norm-referenced or criterion-referenced
  • suitable for children up to six years of age in the identified domains
  • publically vailable data on the measures available (post 2000)
  • U.K. norms
  • standardisation sample data available

Those not meeting these criteria (99 measures) are still included in the database but, for that reason, have not been given a star rating and do not have a full examination of their properties.

To search for the full set of measures
(including these 99 that were not rated) please tick the boxes under the ​‘Psychometric rating’ and ​‘Implementation rating’ to include ​‘not rated’ as well as 0, 1, 2 and 3 stars.

The shortlist of 47 measures which did meet the criteria were then given star ratings. Three stars were available for psychometric properties and were awarded for:

  • recent, representative U.K. normed sample
  • published data on reliability
  • published data on instrument validity

Up to three stars were also awarded for implementation:

  • unrestricted use, no prior professional accreditation required
  • ease of scoring
  • administration time — less than 30 minutes

To search for the measures with star ratings that got through to the second round of the review, please tick the boxes under the ​‘Psychometric rating’ and ​‘Implementation rating’ to include 0, 1, 2 and 3 stars.

To search for specific domains (such as language) you can select the measures under those domains by clicking on the boxes on the left hand side. You can reset the filtering at any time by selecting the reset button in red writing.

To find out more about a measure click on the name of an individual measure. Some details will be missing from those that only reached the first stage of the review. Those that reached the second stage will show all the details that are publicly available on the measure as well as star ratings for Psychometrics and Implementation.

For detailed information about the Early Years Measures database and the review process, please see the guidance to assessment document or email info@​eefoundation.​org.​uk.