Infant–toddler teachers can successfully employ authentic assessment: The Learning Through Relating system

This study documents the reliability and validity of a new infant–toddler authentic assessment, the Learning Through Relating Child Assets Record (LTR-CAR), and its feasibility of use by infant–toddler caregivers in an Early Head Start program. In a sample of 136 children, results indicated a strong internal structure of the LTR-CAR as evidenced by high internal consistency within age bands, expected performance in terms of the order of difficulty of items, and expected performance relative to the chronological ages of children. Moreover, the LTR-CAR accounted for a statistically significant amount of unique variance (between 6 and 26%), over and above age and gender, in six out of eight regressions predicting criterion measures. Given the increasing numbers of infants and toddlers in non-parental care, the need for authentic assessment as a tool to plan meaningful learning opportunities, as well as the lack of evidence-based authentic assessment options at the infant–toddler level, the LTR-CAR may provide a viable option for the field.

► Validation of a new infant–toddler authentic assessment in an Early Head Start site.
► Strong internal structure including item order and match with chronological age.
► 6 of 8 regressions show LTR contributed significant variance to criterion measures.
► Home visitors, who see children less, were no less accurate than center-based.