Data in early childhood

 We need to have a more measured conversation about data in Early Childhood Education… 

The issue of data in Early Childhood Education (ECE) has always been, and continues to be, a vexed one, surrounded by misconceptions, wary of and hostile towards intrusions and subject to highly selective, uninformed misuse and misunderstandings.  

Datafication 

The term ‘datafication’ has been coined in order to describe this, portraying any relationship between ECE and data as intrinsically negative and ultimately damaging and destructive. The sector overflows with stories of having to adjust perceptions of children’s learning to meet a ‘target’. There are anecdotes of how educators are corralled into ‘playing a game’ that contrives a numerical score which is wholly unrelated to our knowledge and understanding. Equally, there are many examples of educators engineering activities or demonstrations of behaviour in order to ‘tick a box’ that enables an acceptable overall ‘score’. 

Yet this often heavy handed and arguably ideological critique completely misses the point and within its ill-considered assumptions often betrays a lack of awareness of the nature and purpose of data. It fails to recognise how, when effectively used within an informed approach, it is vital both to enabling children’s development and progress and providing the necessary accountability that supports and protects effective and impactful ECE provision.  

Rather than using the term ‘datafication’ as a blanket condemnation of this, perhaps the emphasis should be on understanding and using data effectively and within a principled, informed framework. After all, the term ‘data’ simply means ‘information’, and as ECE educators our role is to process continual streams and analyses of this. This is true both in terms of understanding the curriculum intentions and pinpointing how children can be supported and their knowledge, skills and behaviours facilitated and, more pertinently, how we utilise the information, often highly nuanced and interpretable, from the children themselves. 

In essence, the question and the challenge is not should we have data (information), but how can this be effectively and authentically collected and utilised? 

So, why do we need data from ECE provision? 

1. ECE is part of a continuum of learning and progress, not an isolated nor disconnected phase of education. If we want to ensure that this is understood and the valuable work achieved by ECE educators is acknowledged and built upon, then there needs to be an accessible mechanism of describing this. 
2. A central rationale for ensuring that all children have a high quality ECE experience is the knowledge that there is a strong correlation with later outcomes and that this has an impact on and can determine the path of how successful this can be. Therefore, enabling a secure and authentic collection of information at this point enables us to ensure that this pathway is likely to be secure.
3. In order to fully realise the long-term success of learners it is critical to identify what is significant for ECE in order to support and achieve these later outcomes. Again, a sensible approach to understanding how this has been secured can play a vital part in this.
4. Understanding the (sometimes counterintuitive) nature of ECE provision and outcomes is vital for policy; if we are to truly engage with the widest possible audience, and enable a true, universal understanding of the importance, and nature of what we do, then we need a secure starting point in order to frame this in an accessible way. 

However, collating data for ECE does pose substantial challenges…  

The first of these is identifying and incorporating data (information) about the elements and aspects of a child’s development and progress that are truly significant and important. The eminent scientist Albert Einstein is attributed with the quote: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts,” and although it is unclear what he was specifically referring to, it is certainly a relevant consideration when reflecting on ECE data. There will always be a tendency to gravitate towards what is easily measurable ‘countable’ or quantifiable in a simplistic accumulative way. However, research and longitudinal studies indicate that the real ‘signifiers’ of children’s attainment, progress and success are far less simplistic, visible nor easy to calculate. An ability to self -regulate, demonstrate cognitive flexibility or executive function are among the attributes of a child’s skillset that are considered to be highly influential in their development, progress and potential long-term success. So, the challenge created is how to ensure that these significant elements are part of our understanding of children and also, given its importance, constitute the information on which a dataset is created. From this the understanding and analysis of how successful approaches are in facilitating this can be developed and understood. This does, or should, form a central part of the ‘curriculum’ that is being delivered and influence pedagogical approaches to secure them. So rather than simply dismissing the possibility of these, there is an imperative need to utilise approaches that recognise it in an understandable way.  

Authentic and accurate data 

The second identifiable challenge is ensuring that the data that is collected is authentic and accurate. After all, data that is not authentic serves no useful function, and it is symptomatic of the misunderstandings of data in ECE that this is often the case. ‘Creating data’ for its own purpose or to address some spurious requirement is an unnecessary and ultimately unethical action. Educators will use their professional judgement, their informed intuition and their in-depth knowledge of the children they work with to make decisions about both the child’s level of development and progress and also what is required to continue supporting and challenging this. Although there is sometimes an incorrect assumption that generating data (information) requires different, overtly formal, and prescriptive test-based approaches, this is not the case. All effective assessment is based on the principle of being educator led – rather than test based which will not generate an accurate picture of the child’s knowledge or behaviours. Educator led assessment involves practitioners in making accurate and meaningful judgements about children’s attainment through observation of and interaction with children in line with their professional judgements and decisions that permeate their daily life with the children they work with. This rich vein of information surely needs to be the basis, or process from which data is generated. When this is the case then the resulting data, even when it is numerical in form, can be reliable and understandable and therefore usable for the purposes previously referred to. 

Successful data collection 

Within the recent history of ECE there have been a number of success stories in which the seemingly contradictory elements of ECE and the creation of data have been reconciled.  

The work by Prof. Ferre Laevers developing the Wellbeing and Involvement Scales created datasets which were instrumental in securing the importance of children’s security, attachment and confidence in their provision and the critical role of ‘Deep Level Learning’ in consolidating and embedding their knowledge, skills and behaviours. The information was derived from skilled and focussed observation, moderated and contextualized that informed the educators in identifying children who needed support. But the potency of configuring this into a broader framework should not be underestimated.  

The short lived EExBA Baseline Assessment which was accredited by the DfE for use in school YR classes was an educator led observational assessment that utilised the Leuven Scales and also assessed the statutory EYFS Characteristics of Effective Learning alongside Areas of Learning and Development specified by the DfE in order to generate a complex and sophisticated view of children as they entered a YR class. While the declared purpose of this was ultimately to measure progress through the child’s Primary Years, it nevertheless provided an almost complete national picture of attainment – including Leuven Scales and Learning Behaviours – on entry to School. 

Finally, the EYFS Profile – despite its numerous iterations since its inception in 2003 – has remained an assessment that is derived from YR teacher judgment, informs the Y1 teacher on transition and creates a nationally produced dataset that indicates attainment at the end of YR. Its approach to exemplification, internal and external moderation and cross school understanding and use has raised the profile of YR in the EYFS and driven the need to understand how the data is formed and can be used.  

As a sector we need to take a more considered – dare I say it ‘measured’ – view of how we construct information that truly represents children’s learning and progress. By engaging with the challenges but also seeing the benefits of what this will achieve, we can ensure that the professional profile of ECE is understood and valued in the way that it should be.