Outcome Measures for IECMHC

States, tribes, and communities are building the evidence that IECMHC works in early care and education. A common question is which tools to use to measure impact.

Use this Choose and Use tool to plan how you'll measure IECMHC outcomes. It summarizes 22 measures used in two or more IECMHC program evaluations, covering impact on children, teachers, teacher-child relationships, and classrooms or programs.

Full record

Classroom · Measure

Environmental Rating Scales (ECERS, ITERS, FCCERS, SACERS)

Trained observer/trained rater6 languagesDetailsClose

Level: Classroom
Type of Tool: Measure
Construct: Classroom quality
Respondent: Trained observer/trained rater
Language(s): English; Spanish; French; Japanese; German; Other
Length: 2.5 to 3 hours; 27 to 33 items
Description: Designed to assess quality in early childcare or school age settings. Measures various classroom interactions between staff and children, staff, parents, and other adults; interactions among the children themselves; and interactions children have with the many materials and activities in the environment, as well as those features (such as space, schedule, and materials) that support these interactions. The original rating scales have been revised over time and a third edition is now available.
Subscales: The third edition of the ITERS and ECERS cover six domains: Space and Furnishings, Personal Care Routines, Language and Literacy, Learning Activities, Interaction and Program Structure
Published Psychometrics?: Yes See for example: Perlman, M., Zellman, G. L., & Le, V. N. (2004). Examining the psychometric properties of the early childhood environment rating scale-revised (ECERS-R). Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 19(3), 398-412.
Citation for Tool: Harms, T., Clifford, R.M, Cryer, D. & Yazejian, N. (2017). Infant/Toddler Rating Scale (ITERS-3). Teachers College Press, New York. Harms, T., Clifford, R.M, & Cryer, D. (2014). Early Childhood Rating Scale (ECERS-3). Teachers College Press, New York.
In the Public Domain?: No - Available for purchase at https://www.ersi.info/order.html

Disclaimers

Don't limit your data collection to these measures. They are outcome measures: they show how IECMHC affects children, classrooms, and programs. Also collect implementation data (how IECMHC is delivered) and process data (the near-term changes that lead to those outcomes).

Many families who use IECMHC face wide racial and ethnic disparities in access to opportunity. Programs and systems leaders should always collect demographic data, and always break down outcome, process, and implementation data by race/ethnicity, income, language, and disability status.

Make evaluation decisions in light of your program's theory of change, setting, and the people you serve. Where you can, choose measures normed on the populations you serve and available in a language families understand.

In addition to using the Choose and Use Guide, we recommend you also contact the CoE to request technical assistance to refine your decisions about which tools to select.

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Request technical assistance from the Center of Excellence to help you decide which tools to use.

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