3-004 - Novel Approaches to Measuring Children’s Bioecological Contexts

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

A number of foundational developmental theories have emphasized the importance of children’s immediate social and physical environments as core influences on their short- and long-term development (Bronfrenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Sameroff, 2010). At the same time, researchers have often struggled to operationalize these bioecological contexts in valid and reliable ways. The aim of this symposium is to describe four new approaches to measuring central features of children’s day-to-day bioecological contexts, including their neighborhoods, schools, classrooms, families, and individual biological functioning.

The panel will include four papers, which will be ordered from distal to proximal. Paper 1 will describe an online systematic social observation tool for capturing the structural and social characteristics of children’s school and school neighborhood environments. Paper 2 will focus on an observational assessment of children’s self-regulation at the classroom level. Paper 3 will present a puppet-based interview approach to quantifying children’s internal representations of household financial status. Finally, paper 4 will describe the use of wearable, wrist-based actigraphs and the use of ecological momentary assessments delivered via phone as measures of children’s individual sleep quality and daily mood. Each paper will follow the same general structure, emphasizing both the conceptual framework used to develop the particular approach to measurement, as well as the empirical steps used for validation. Each presenter will also discuss implications of her work for research and policy, including the role of technology in measurement, the potential use of bioecological measures for formative assessment and accountability, and challenges for scalability and sustainability.

Sub Unit

• Methods, History, Theory

Chair

• Jason Downer, University of Virginia

Individual Presentations

• Virtual School Neighborhood Observation: A Digital Tool for Estimating and Understanding the Impact of Schools’ Neighborhoods - Presenting Author: Emily Hanno, Harvard University; Olivia Healy, Northwestern University

• An Observational Measure of Regulation-Related Skills in the Early Childhood Classroom Setting - Presenting Author: Dana Charles McCoy, Harvard University; Stephanie Jones, Harvard University; Deborah Leong, Tools of the Mind; Elena Bodrova, Tools of the Mind; Barbara Wilder-Smith, Tools of the Mind; Andrew Koepp, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Assessing Young Children’s Internal Representations of School and Home Experiences - Presenting Author: Terri Sabol, Northwestern University; Emily Ross, Northwestern University; Courtenay Lorraine Kessler, Northwestern University; Amanda Sheffield Morris, Oklahoma State University; Teresa Sommer, Northwestern University

• Measuring and Modeling the Relationship between Daily Mood and Sleep - Presenting Author: Amanda L. Roy, University of Illinois at Chicago