Abstract:

School readiness predicts both school and life success, so measuring it effectively is extremely important. Current school readiness tests focus on pre-academic skills; however, mastery moti-vation (MM: persistent, focus on trying to do a task, Barrett & Morgan, 2018) and executive functions (EF: planful self-control, Diamond, 2013) are also crucial (Barrett et al., 2017; Buek, 2019; Hunter et al., 2018). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the chronological development of Finding Out Children’s Unique Strengths (FOCUS App: Józsa et al., 2017), which was initially designed for Hungarian and US cultures. FOCUS App is a game-like tablet-based assessment of two Approaches to Learning (ATL) domains, Mastery Motivation (MM) and Executive Functions (EF) and pre-academic skills for 3-8-year-old children. To measure these competencies, FOCUS has a total of seven tasks. Tasks 1 and 2 assess two pre-academic skills. Tasks 3-5 are letter and number search tasks designed to assess MM, operationalised as the child’s persistence during moderately challenging tasks. Tasks 6 and 7 are primarily designed to assess EFs and provide MM measures based on dimensional card change sorting tasks (DCCS: Zelazo et al., 2016). Task 3-7 assess Approaches to Learning. The development of the FOCUS App started with face to face testing using paper-based prototypes designed to simulate the computer tablet screens. These pilot tests were successful in assessing number and letter search but not emotions. The level of difficulty was improved, and computer-based tasks were developed. The first version of FOCUS was released in 2017 for testing, piloting and evaluation. This version was web-based, developed on the .net platform and collected data on pre-academic skills, MM and EF. This version was in English and Hungarian. Due to internet connectivity challenges in schools, the second version was released in 2018, which was offline, tablet-based, and built on the android platform. This version collected video recordings that enable the assessment of participants’ task persistence and emotional expressions (Józsa et al., 2019). Two other adaptations have been designed, the Hebrew and Kenyan versions. We are now designing a feedback module that will provide real-time results to the user during school readiness tests. FOCUS App has several advantages over other similar apps. Firstly, it assesses more than one domain and has adopted the evidence centred design which provides evidence for tasks undertaken by children (Kim et al., 2016). Thirdly, it is game-based, thus very easy for the children and automates the process of data collection using a narrator that gives instructions. Moreover, the tasks are individualised, thus increasing the ability of the app to offer individualised interventions. Lastly, unlike other tools that have adopted the Dimensional Change Card Sort task (DCCS: Zelazo, 2006), the FOCUS app does not use reaction time to measure difficulty at higher levels.

Keywords:

FOCUS App, Mastery Motivation, Executive Functions, Tablet-based Assessment.