Computerized Social-Emotional Assessment Battery for School Readiness

描述（由申请人提供）：过渡到正规学校教育是一个至关重要的基础，可以让孩子在学术和社会领域的成功或失败的循环。在整个学校教育过程中，尤其是在早期，孩子表达健康情绪的能力，理解自我和他人的情绪，调节情绪，注意力和行为，对社会问题做出正确的决定，以及参与一系列亲社会行为，所有这些都共同促进了成功的学校经历。然而，许多儿童在入学时在这些技能方面存在缺陷，教育工作者缺乏必要的工具来识别、跟踪和评估这些儿童需要学习的技能。改善这些条件的工作可以帮助孩子们有机会实现他们的潜力，过上健康和富有成效的生活，这是美国国立卫生研究院的一项重要使命。因此，由于社交情绪学习（SEL）是如此重要，精确定位儿童技能和进步的评估工具是至关重要的。本研究将通过计算机化，采用基于研究的SEL评估工具，对学校适应和学业成就进行实证预测。这些计算机化工具将用于幼儿教育环境、教学和基于结果的目的。因此，我们的总体目标是开始改造这种电池，使其在学前教育、学前教育和学前教育教室中发挥最大的效用和可行性。我们看到了这一系列评估的未来，在其后期，最终形式，形成性和总结性儿童评估和课堂或项目评估；它将用于为特定学生提供全面的课堂教学和教学计划，衡量入学准备情况，并评估项目责任。因此，我们在这个探索性/发展性项目中的第一个目标是设计一个基于计算机的SEL评估电池。然后，在项目的第一年，我们将完成评估自我调节、情感知识、社会问题解决和亲社会行为的游戏式测量的计算机化，并对这些早期版本进行试验，检查它们在教师和3至4岁儿童中的可用性，以及它们与教师对计算机的态度、计算机在课堂上的使用、性别、年龄、儿童早期学业成功和认知能力的关系。我们将在与教师举行焦点小组讨论后，根据需要修改相关措施。”有了这个基础，在项目的第二年，我们将致力于验证完整的计算机化电池与原始的非计算机化评估工具的关系，以及儿童早期学校的成功。这项工作将为最终确定该电池并继续探索其用途提供跳板。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The transition into formal schooling is a crucial foundation that can set children on a cycle of success or failure in both academic and social domains. Throughout schooling, but perhaps most especially during these early years, a child's abilities to express healthy emotions, understand emotions of self and others, regulate emotion, attention, and behavior, make good decisions regarding social problems, and engage in a range of prosocial behaviors, all work together promote successful school experience. However, many children have deficits in these skills by school entry, and educators lack the requisite tools to identify, track and assess skills these children need to learn. Work to ameliorate these conditions may help children have the chance to fulfill their potential to live healthy and productive lives, a key mission of NIH. Thus, because social-emotional learning (SEL) is so crucial, assessment tools to pinpoint children's skills and progress are vitally necessary. The proposed research will adapt, via computerization, research-based SEL assessment tools with strong empirical predictive validity for school adjustment and achievement. These computerized tools will be used in early childhood educational settings, instructional and outcome-based purposes. Our overarching goal for this application, then, is to begin transforming this battery to maximize utility and feasibility in preschool, Head Start and prekindergarten classrooms. We see the future of this assessment battery, in its later, ultimate form, for both formative and summative child assessments and classroom or program evaluation; it will be used to inform overall classroom instruction and instructional plans for specific students, measure school readiness, and evaluate program accountability. Thus, our first aim in this exploratory/developmental project is to design a computer-based version of our SEL assessment battery. In Year 1 of the project, then, we will complete our computerization of game-like measures assessing self regulation, emotion knowledge, social problem-solving, and prosocial behavior, and pilot these early versions, examining their usability with teachers and 3- to 4-year- old children, as well as their relation to teachers' attitudes about computer, computer usage in the classroom, gender, age, and children's early school success and cognitive ability. We will revise the measures as necessary after holding a focus group with teachers to inform this process. With this foundation, in Year 2 of the project we will work toward validation of the complete computerized battery against the original noncomputerized assessment tools, and in relation to children's early school success. This work will provide a springboard to finalization of this battery and continued exploration of its usefulness.