Assessing Preschoolers' Self-Regulation in Homes and Classrooms: Lessons from the Field

Abstract

Self-regulation represents one of the key developmental tasks faced by preschool children. In the Games As Measurement for Early Self-Control (GAMES) study, the goal was to create a battery of self-regulation assessments appropriate for use with ethnically diverse children from low-income families in ecologically valid contexts. Respondents were 71 English- and/or Spanish-speaking children who participated in a variety of assessments adapted from laboratory and clinical settings for use in homes and classrooms. Individual measures are described and used to highlight issues related to the administration of self-regulation assessments in the field (e.g., pragmatic considerations, importance of standardized administration, need for variability in children's responses, differentiating between challenge and confusion, cultural sensitivity, recruitment). Findings suggest that many laboratory and clinical assessments are appropriate for home and classroom administration (with some tasks coded from videotape and some coded “live”). The inclusion of self-regulation measures in a variety of new large-scale research projects is discussed.