Classroom Assessment Scoring System -
Child Version (CLASS-C)
Validation Study
Timeline
2007-2009
Research Questions
Research Questions
- Can we capture sufficient variability in observed behaviors across children and within children over time?
- Can we reliably observe
and measure behaviors within preschool classrooms?
- Can we establish
concurrent validity by comparing teacher ratings of behaviors with
observations
made by independent observers?
Project
Staff
Emily Harding-Morick
Martha Real y Vasquez
Jennifer Vu
Project Support
This study is part of the Interagency Consortium for School Readiness Outcome Measures (ICSROM) and co-funded by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education.
Emily Harding-Morick
Martha Real y Vasquez
Jennifer Vu
Project Support
This study is part of the Interagency Consortium for School Readiness Outcome Measures (ICSROM) and co-funded by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Education.
Project Summary
This project is a collaboration between researchers at the UCLA Center for Improving Child Care Quality and the University of Virginia Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning.
The principal aim of this project is to validate an observational assessment instrument of young children's social, emotional, and task-oriented competence as displayed in early education classrooms with peers, teachers, and instructional activities (Classroom Assessment Scoring System-Child Version [CLASS-C]) that can be used by teachers, researchers, and evaluators. CLASS-C is organized into four major domains of children’s competence, as embedded within a preschool classroom context: child-teacher relationships, peer relationships, self-regulation, and social communication. In order to do this, we will conduct a short-term longitudinal validation study over the course of two years, recruiting 400 3-, 4-, and 5-year old children in initially 100 classrooms in which the observational indicators will be correlated with direct assessments of academic performance and teachers' reports of children's competence.
Children in the study will be observed and rated by research staff and teachers, in the four areas that the CLASS-C encompasses during the fall and spring of each academic year. Data analysis will focus on examining the relationships between observed competencies measured by the CLASS-C and teachers’ assessments of children’s competencies to provide evidence of the criterion-related, concurrent validity of the CLASS-C, as indicated by its association with other measures of similar constructs
