Development of Scales for Measuring the In-person Growth of Young Children in Japan, China and Korea

Abstract

There are a lot of developmental scales around the world and they are used in different situations. However, these tests are not perfect for two reasons. The first reason is that most developmental scales, including intelligence tests, normally tend to rank the children in the groups of the same age as those in-growth groups. However, an examination to capture in-person growth is necessary. The second reason is that most conventional development tests are created independently by each country, translated and used in another country, so there is the problem of global standards not being satisfied. To cope with these problems, we tried to develop scales for 3 to 6-year-old children in a group of less than 4,000 in Japan, China and Korea. These countries have some common child rearing cultural aspects and declining birthrate problems. In our research, we examined the validity and reliability of the composition concept, created specific items, investigated, and selected practical items for child rearing. The relevance of the composition concept included content aspect, substantive aspect, structural aspect and external aspect.

Keywords: Development of Scales, In-person Growth, Validity, Reliability, Cross Culture Research