Patterns of Young Children's Development: An International Comparison of Development as Assessed by Who Am I? - April 2002

Comparison of mean scores on the different scales of Who Am I? provide information on the relative performance of children at different age-matched levels. However, they do not indicate what these differences mean in real terms.

To obtain a more descriptive analysis of the skills children have actually achieved, a further analysis of the children's level of development was undertaken, based on the developmental stages achieved on each of the Symbols tasks and the Diamond task. These tasks were selected as the tasks which were most indicative of the children's developmental level.

Responses on each of these tasks were allocated a score ranging from 1 to 4, depending on a qualitative assessment as to the developmental level indicated by the child's response. For all tasks, a score of 1 or 2 indicated that the child was not yet able to respond appropriately to the task. A score of 3 or 4 indicated either a successful or a partially successful response to the task, indicating at least some understanding of the requirement of the task and a reasonable attempt to complete the task.

Table 8 shows the percentage of responses indicating success or partial success on each task (level 3 and level 4 responses) for the different samples at entry to school level (age five to six years) on the Symbols items of Who Am I?, the Diamond task on the Copying Scale, and the Drawing task, in the case of those samples where this task was administered.

Results on the diamond copying task have been included in this analysis because this item was found to be the most discriminating item on the Copying Scale. In addition, success on this task has been found to be associated with the transition to the concrete operational stage of development (Piaget and Inhelder, 1956). Success (or partial success) on this task may, therefore, be taken as an indicator of developmental level, and of the developmental shift that occurs somewhere between the age of five and seven years. Results on the drawing task are also shown in Table 8. Although this task was not administered to the Canadian Community 2000 sample, and, therefore, not included in the calculation of the overall mean score on Who Am I?, this task does provide further information on developmental level, and, therefore, supplements the information provided by the other tasks.

Table 8 Percentage of Level 3 and Level 4 Responses on Selected Tasks, by Country, for School Entry Level (Age 6)

Task	Australia Mid First Year of Schooling 5:11 1355	Canada 2000 End Senior Kindergarten 6:0 N = 2128	Sweden End Preschool Level 1 5:11 N = 33	Hong Kong End Preschool Level 3 6:0 N = 20	India Beginning Grade 1 5:9 N = 232
Diamond	74	74	55	100	19
Name	95	95	91	100	40
Numbers	90	79	49	95	89
Letters	92	86	82	100	78
Words	64	50	27	100	17
Sentence	44	36	9	100	6
Drawing	84	N/C	52	70	10
N/C: not collected

The results of the different samples on the diamond copying task indicate that by the time they start school, most children in Australia, Canada and Hong Kong are able to copy the diamond, or at least to make a reasonable attempt to represent the main features of the figure. However, only about half of the six-year old children in Sweden (at the end of their first year in preschool) and one fifth of the children in India (at the beginning of their first year in school) are able to complete this task. This suggests that the achievement of this skill is related not only to age, but also to the kinds of experiences that children are exposed to in their preschool years.

At age six, most children are able to write their own name (except in the case of the Indian sample), and most are also able to write numbers and letters. However, the Swedish group at this age level still seems to have some difficulty with numbers, with only 49 per cent achieving success or partial success on this task. While all of the Hong Kong six-year olds are able to write words and a sentence, children in the other samples are less advanced in their writing skills. In Australia and Canada, about half of the children are able to write at least some words, but only about 30 to 40 per cent are able to write a sentence. Six-year-olds in Sweden and India have less developed writing skills, with only 20 to 30 per cent of children being able to write some words, and less than 10 per cent being able to write a sentence.

The responses to the drawing task support the overall pattern of results on the other tasks, but, nevertheless, reveal some differences that are of interest to note. Despite their success on the other tasks, relatively fewer of the children in Hong King achieve a level 3 or level 4 response on this task (70 per cent). This suggests that, in some cases, the effects of a highly structured teaching program may result in an apparent discrepancy between achieved skills and developmental level. It is also of interest to note the correspondence between lower scores on the diamond task and lower scores on the drawing task in the Swedish and Indian samples. This correspondence gives some support to the assumption that both these tasks are tapping underlying developmental processes, but that these processes are associated not only with age but also with exposure to particular types of preschool experience.

Whether these variations in response patterns among the different items reflect real differences in relative performance on the different tasks, or whether they are due, at least in part, to differences in the way the scoring criteria have been applied in scoring the responses, is an issue which will need to be considered further. Nevertheless, there is an overall consistency in trends and patterns which suggest that Who Am I? is providing a valid indicator of development and learning in children from age four to age seven. This measure is sensitive to variations not only in age, but also in the nature of the educational program provided for children in the years prior to entry to school, and to parent and teacher expectations and family background characteristics that are likely to have an impact on children's early development and learning.