Investigating the reliability and validity of the Toddler Home Learning Environment (THLE) scale

Abstract

Home learning environments prior to school are well-known predictors of educational trajectories but research has neglected children aged under three. The new Toddler Home Learning Environment (THLE) scale is one response and this paper investigates its reliability and validity. The THLE is an adaptation of the Preschool HLE (PHLE) measure developed by the Effective Pre-School Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE) investigation in the 1990s. The THLE was developed as part of the Evaluation of Children’s Centers in England (ECCE) investigation that followed a sample of 2,608 of families from 14 to 38 months. The THLE was administered at 14 months, the PHLE at 38. The 8-item THLE evidences internal consistency via statistical reliability coefficients and Confirmatory Factor Analysis plus measurement validity via statistically significant and research-appropriate associations with the PHLE, three measures of child development, and child and parent demographics. This paper moves the HLE literature forward with a new parental self-report scale of the HLE that is for use with toddlers.

Challenges facing interventions to promote equity in the early years: exploring the ‘impact’, legacy and lessons learned from a national evaluation of Children’s Centres in England

“…Many early years policy interventions do not follow an experimental design and their evaluation therefore poses different challenges and requires different approaches to knowledge creation. The EvCCE study points to the value of longitudinal, mixed methods designs to study intended policy 'impacts' appropriately via analyses of statistical effects on relevant outcomes and is in accord with well-established practice in educational effectiveness research (Hall et al, 2021;Teddlie & Sammons, 2010). We argue that such educational effectiveness research informed and theorydriven approaches to evaluation differ from, and can complement, evidence obtained from more tightly focused RCT or quasi-experimental studies of specific interventions that are often targeted to highly selected groups.…”

“…Links with administrative data can also provide valuable additional evidence (in EvCCE this enabled investigation of the important topic of 'reach' [Smith et al, 2014]), and provide pointers to longer term effects (as studies by Cattan et al, 2021;Melhuish et al, 2008 illustrate). EvCCE suggests that perspectives from educational effectiveness research (Creemers et al, 2010;Hall et al, 2021), including multilevel statistical models based on large, nested samples and informed by an ecological theoretical perspective, can support rigorous evaluation of complex and often 'messy' real world early years policy initiatives.…”

“…This limited the possibility of finding direct effects on child development, since SSCCs were usually not working directly with children who commonly attended childcare elsewhere. However, parents' engagement with SSCCs predicted better scores for the early home learning environment measure at age 3+, controlling for a baseline measure of earlier toddler home learning environment (Hall et al, 2021;. Sure Start policy sought to promote parenting skills and aspirations, the results showing a greater number of positive effects on mother and family outcomes might reflect the emphasis placed on parenting goals in policy documents and also reported by SSCC staff in Strand 3 surveys (Evangelou et al, 2014).…”

“…The Confusion, Hubbub, And Order within the home Scale (CHAOS) provided an indicator of structure of the home environment, while the early years home learning environment scale measured specific features of the home learning environment at child age 3+ years. Two measures of parenting were collected: Parental Distress and Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction (Hall et al, 2021;.…”

“…Parenting has received particular attention and the role of the early years home learning environment is an example of such concerns (Attig & Weinert, 2020;Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2019;Lehrl et al, 2020) with a number of large-scale, longitudinal studies demonstrating associations between various child and family background characteristics and the quality of the early years home learning environment (e.g. Attig & Weinert, 2020;Hall et al, 2021;Sammons, Toth et al, 2015;Toth et al, 2020). Various small-scale experimental/quasi-experimental interventions have been developed to support parenting activities to foster better child development (e.g.…”