Developing assessment instruments of early childhood science and mathematics education content standards

The goal of this research is to develop a standard that can support implementation of science and mathematics education in a planned and programmed way. In order to reach this goal, Early Childhood Science Education Content Standards Scale SCSS and Early Childhood Mathematics Education Content Standards Scale MCSS were established.The sample of the research involved 60- to 72-month-old children attending to public preschool education programs connected to Ministry of Education and nursery classes within the body of public elementary schools during 2011 Fall semester and 2012 Spring semester in the central districts of Antalya. Data were received from 486 children in the study group of scales test-work and from 88 children in the study of test- retest reliability of final form realized three weeks apart.With respect to the validity of scales, exploratory factor analysis was performed for the structure validity. As a result, it was concluded that there were 3 sub-dimensions regarding SCSS (Early Childhood Science Education Content Standards Scale) and there were 4 sub-dimensions regarding MCSS (Early Childhood Mathematics Education Content Standards Scale). Also, these dimensions offered the expected coherence among themselves. These results indicate that the structure validity of the scales is sufficient. Moreover, based upon the opinions of 6 academicians with PhD decrees granted from different universities, it was underlined that both SCSS and MCSS had content validity. With respect to reliability of scales, looking at the sub-dimensions of SCSS and MCSS, it was seen that the Cronbach?s alpha coefficient was relatively high. These findings signal that each sub-dimension?s items are consistent with each other. The results of test- retest analysis, which was performed to determine whether the scales could offer consistent measures time-dependently, revealed that reliability coefficient was sufficient for SCSS and at an acceptable level for MCSS. The scales are useful since they are affordable in terms of time and cost, and it is also practical to apply and score them.The findings of the research indicate that since both SCSS and MCSS have validity and reliability, they can be used as assessment instruments for science and mathematics education content standards intended for 60- to 72-month-old children.Keywords: Early childhood, science education, mathematics education, content standards.