science

International Development and Early Learning Assessment

International Development and Early Learning Assessment is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand International Development and Early Learning Assessment rather than just read about it. In short: The International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) is a method of measuring early development in children at a pre-primary school level. It was developed for Save the Children between 2011 and 2015.

Key takeaways

International Development and Early Learning Assessment belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect International Development and Early Learning Assessment to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of International Development and Early Learning Assessment from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA) is a method of measuring early development in children at a pre-primary school level. It was developed for Save the Children between 2011 and 2015.

Background Cognitive, socio-emotional and physical development during early childhood is crucial to the child's ability to achieve their potential, and to the social and economic health of society as a whole. However, poverty, stunting and lack of intellectual stimulus in low- and middle-income countries damage early development of almost half of all children aged 3 to 4, which will affect them through their lives. One of the main reasons is lack of access to early childhood education programs, particularly for poor, rural families. Existing tools for ECCD measurement had mostly been used in high-income countries, and were hard to adapt to poorer countries. Often they were costly, and many had limitations such as measuring only one skill or age group, or relying on reports from parents or teachers rather than direct measurement.

Objectives Before IDELA was developed there were no tools for measuring early Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) in low and middle income country that balanced the needs for consistency across different countries, ease of use and psychometric rigor. IDELA was to be a feasible, holistic, rigorous, open source instrument that could easily be adapted to different societies. It would support continuous program improvement across the many field sites of Save the Children and their partners, increase accountability among ECCD initiatives, and provide data about ECCD outcomes that governments and agencies could use to identify and scale up successful ECCD programs.

Development Development of IDELA began in 2011 based on four early childhood development domains, drawn from existing standards for early childhood education: physical, language/literacy, numeracy/cognitive and social-emotional. Over 65 items were considered at first, but these were reduced to 33 during qualitative review. Between 2013 and 2015 data was collected from 11 sites in different countries. Although there were limitations to the approach, results show that IDELA is a practical and rigorous method of measuring learning and development before children begin their primary schooling.

Assessment approach Children from 42 to 78 months old can be assessed in about 30 minutes. A trained assessor sits with the child, follows a scripted protocol for each test and observes the child's response. After six of the most challenging tests, and after the child interview, the assessor records whether the child was persistent, motivated and attentive in trying to complete the task. Materials needed are a pencil, blank paper, small items for counting (such as beans or buttons), nine picture cards related to eight items on the assessment, and a storybook that contains pictures and text. Skills assessed are:

Results A 2019 study of IDELA results in Afghanistan, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Uganda and Vietnam confirmed that IDELA was useful for evaluating programs and monitoring progress within a country, but found it did not give a valid basis for comparison between countries. A study published in 2021 used data from Ghana to test how well IDELA predicted future skills in reading, as measured by the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA), and in mathematics as measured by the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA). Results showed strong correlation, with scores in the Emergent Literacy domain a strong predictor of EGRA scores, and the scores in the Emergent Numeracy domain a strong predictor for EGMA scores.

See also Assessment of basic language and learning skills Educational psychology

References

Sources

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with International Development and Early Learning Assessment

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what International Development and Early Learning Assessment claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to International Development and Early Learning Assessment before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about International Development and Early Learning Assessment ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of International Development and Early Learning Assessment

In research: International Development and Early Learning Assessment appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses International Development and Early Learning Assessment in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: International Development and Early Learning Assessment is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Behaviorism, Child development, Educational psychology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for International Development and Early Learning Assessment outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study International Development and Early Learning Assessment in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what International Development and Early Learning Assessment means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain International Development and Early Learning Assessment out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is International Development and Early Learning Assessment in simple terms?

Why does International Development and Early Learning Assessment matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study International Development and Early Learning Assessment?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on International Development and Early Learning Assessment.