Development of an assesment tool for preschool children's mathematical skills

This study aimed to develop the "Mocha Preschool Mathematics Skills Assessment Tool" for the assessment of preschool children's mathematical abilities. In the scale, unlike other scales used in the field, the intention was to create a narrative around a story to provide engaging content while measuring children's mathematical skills. The quantitative study was carried out with 74 children attending a private preschool in Istanbul during the spring semester of the 2022-2023 academic year. Scale improvement studies were conducted after the preliminary application with 14 children, and the final application was carried out with 60 children. At the end of the study, it was observed that the scale was engaging for children, measured the targeted skills, showed an association between the child's age and the number of correct answers, and needed to be tested on a larger sample for universal acceptability of the scale. The developed scale was found to be an important assessment tool for educators and researchers, being both engaging for preschool children and understandable, free from complex question structures, due to its structure. In this context, it is seen that the Mocha Scale will contribute to the measurement of mathematical knowledge and skills of preschool children.