Assessing Quality in the Early Years. Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale. Extension (ECERS-E) Four Curricula Subscales

This is a short book about the use of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale- Extension (ECERS-E). The book serves the purpose of a guide for practitioners and researchers rather than a textbook that sets out the tenets and underlying theoretical principles for ECERS-E. The ECERS-E is based on the initial ECERS which was developed in the 1980s and revised almost 15 years later to produce the ECERS-Revision (http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~ecers/). The use of the book and the ECERS-Extension require familiarity with the initial work done on ECERS and ECERS-R.

The ECERS-E is based on research undertaken on the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) by the research team at the Institute of Education, University of London, to include subscales that assess areas of emphasis in the English Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage. In contrast to ECERS-R which focused on social outcomes (by including such subscales as space and furnishing, personal care routines, language and reasoning, activities, interaction, programme structure and parent staff interaction), the ECERS-E includes subscales that have academic achievement orientation, e.g. literacy, mathematics, science and environment and diversity.

Sylva and her colleagues are quick to point out that the ECERS-E is not meant to replace the ECERS-R (a view that is shared by Harms, Cryer and Clifford, the lead authors of the ECERS-R), but to complement each other. They admit that the use of either ECERS-R or ECERS-E depends much on national priorities; "If academic achievement is valued at the start of the school, then the ECERS-E is a good predictor of readiness for school. But if social outcomes are valued, then the social interaction scale on the ECERS-R may be a better predictor of readiness (p. 8).

According to the authors, the use the ECERS-E requires familiarity with ECERS-R and appropriate training for successful use of the scale. The completion of ECERS-E depends on sound observational skills and careful preparation for conducting observations. The information on scoring the scales looks rather complex and a daunting task, especially, for new prospective users who are not familiar with the scale's format and content. The scoring system and the templates of "score sheets" (four pages) and "ECERS-E profile" (one page), provided, become clearer when one looks at the sub-scales and the way they are organised. This justifies the authors' claim that this scoring can "be done once the observer is familiar with the scale" (p. 11). Still, however, judgements on individual items depend much on individual observers' interpretations of what is meant by the terms "inadequate", "minimal", etc. Harms and her colleagues have provided additional information to help in accurate scoring and improve interrater agreements for ECERS (http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~ecers/ ),similar clarifications might be of use for the ECERS-E.

The real value of the scale is seen in its use as a self-assessment and improvement tool at centre (early years setting) level, although the authors claim the ECERS-E to have predictive validity with regard to children's cognitive process. The scale moves beyond the notion of assessing individual children to embrace the notion of measuring quality processes by placing emphasis on the way the learning environment is organised and managed to facilitate children's development and learning. The actual observations and the ratings on each subscale require and facilitate staff's self-critique and engagement in a reflective dialogue that aims to identify areas that require further action to be taken.

In addition to this information, the book offers in appendix 2 an extensive discussion of the reliability and validity of ECERS-R and ECERS-E based on research undertaken by the EPPE research team and other researchers in different countries. This section is full of terms that may sound intimidating for the early years practitioner with little, or no background knowledge on the development of such scales and the statistical analysis required to establish reliability and validity. However, this is important starting information for researchers who would like to use the scale for research purposes.

One limitation of the book is that, at no point, is there a clear definition of what constitutes "quality in the early years". Implicitly, the subscales and the corresponding items are seen as the defining indicators of quality. However, as the ECERS-E is a scale that looks at quality in terms of academic achievement, it is important that the early years practitioners do not rely on this scale alone. For early years practitioners to be true to the underlying philosophy of early years provision, which aims to support children's holistic development, it is important that they also use the ECERS-R to have a full picture of quality in the early years setting where they work.

Reference

Development of the ECERS-R. Online. Available http://www.fpg.unc.edu/~ecers/ (accessed 17 June 2004)