Development and Validation of the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Scale

Abstract

Few psychometrically reliable and valid instruments exist to assess the learning and teaching quality of early childhood programs in Chinese societies. To address this gap, the current study aims to develop a reliable, valid and culturally appropriate instrument, the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Scale (ECCOS), for the evaluation of classroom learning and teaching quality in Hong Kong kindergartens. ECCOS was constructed base on the content of Performance Indicator (Domain of Learning and Teaching), the latest Guide to Pre-primary Curriculum, kindergarten inspection reports, psychometrically sound Western and Chinese classroom observation instruments and feedbacks from frontline early childhood educators. Results suggested that ECCOS has excellent inter-rater and internal reliabilities. Factor analysis generated 12 factors which accounted for 64.96% of the variances. These results indicated that ECCOS is a psychometrically sound and culturally appropriate classroom observation scale for the evaluation of learning and teaching quality in Hong Kong early childhood settings.