“Growing” Measures for Monitoring Progress in Early Childhood Education: A Research and Development Process for Individual Growth and Development Indicators

General outcome measurement has emerged as a “best practice” and empirically validated set of procedures for assessing the academic and behavioral development of children and youth, particularly in the academic domains. Recently, general outcome measurement has been extended in application to younger children. Through our work as part of the Early Childhood Research Institute of Measuring Growth and Development (ECRI-MGD), we have developed and evaluated a set of Individual Growth and Development Indicators or IGDIs. These IGDIs are easy to use; provide direct assessment of growth; are adaptable across children, programs, and purposes; have strong empirical evidence of reliability and validity. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of general outcome measurement and its potential for assessment of continuous progress in early childhood education, and to describe an eight-step research and development process for the generating and evaluating of individual growth and development indicators. © 2002, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.