Establishing performance standards for child development: learnings from the ECDI2030.

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Global Health
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Global standards are essential for assessing early childhood development (ECD) across diverse populations.
• The Early Childhood Development Index 2030 (ECDI2030) aims to provide globally comparable data for Sustainable Development Goal target 4.2.
• ECDI2030 measures children aged 24-59 months on health, learning, and psychosocial well-being.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish criterion-referenced performance cut-scores for the ECDI2030 using a standard-setting exercise.
• To ensure the ECDI2030 provides reliable and valid measures of children being developmentally on track.
• To enable consistent global monitoring of early childhood development.

Main Methods:

• The modified Angoff method was employed for a criterion-referenced standard-setting exercise.
• Fifteen global early childhood development experts provided input.
• Population data from Mexico and the State of Palestine informed the calibration of age-specific cut-scores.

Main Results:

• Robust performance standards were generated through the standard-setting process.
• Five age-specific cut-scores were established for the ECDI2030.
• The proportion of children developmentally on track was estimated, with disaggregation by sex and early childhood education attendance.

Conclusions:

• The study successfully adapted standard-setting methodology for a child development measure.
• Criterion-referenced standards ensure ECDI2030 cut-scores reflect expert consensus on child development milestones.
• This approach validates the ECDI2030 for defining and measuring children as developmentally on track globally.