IMPACT Measures Tool®

Measurement is the process of translating a characteristic into a number. This includes everything from translating the size of a paper into its length in inches, to translating a child’s early math skills into a score on a kindergarten readiness assessment. In psychology or education, a measure is a tool used to gather specific information about an individual or group. Early childhood measures, also known as assessments, gather information about children and families to understand more about how children develop early in life. For example, a caregiver may complete a survey on their child’s social-emotional development. The survey — the measure — would translate these skills into a score. Read more about psychological measurement.

Each measure available on the website is categorized into four different measure types: direct assessment, survey, observation, and interview. If the measure was designed for use as a screening tool, this is also noted.

• Direct Assessments are measures that directly assess an individual’s skill in a specific area (e.g., receptive vocabulary or executive function). Direct assessments may be administered via paper-pencil or electronically, and usually require an administrator.
• Surveys or questionnaires include questions regarding characteristics, behaviors, or opinions of individuals at single or multiple time points. Surveys are one of the most common methods of measurement, but survey users often need to be mindful of overgeneralization and potential biases.
• Observation measures require direct observation (in person or via video) of individuals or a group to administer and score. These measures often require multiple coders to score the observations. Scoring of observation measures are conducted in real-time or after administration, and rely on several factors such as the length and frequency of observations as well as the administrator’s interpretation. In addition, observation measures need to consider participant privacy and confidentiality concerns (e.g., in healthcare).
• Interviews involve an administrator directly asking questions to the child or caregiver, rather than respondents recording their own responses. Interviews can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. Interviews can be administered individually or in a group (such as a focus group setting).
• Screening tools are measures intended to detect specific indicators of risk (e.g., food insecurity or autism spectrum disorders) and identify whether further evaluation is needed. Screening tools are a first indication of whether an individual may be at risk for developmental or clinical issues, but do NOT constitute a clinical diagnosis. In addition, the accuracy of the score cutoffs used for screening tools depends on the comparison measure used in development. Screening tools are NOT intended to measure a program’s impact.

There is no one size fits all approach to choosing a measure. When developing a measurement plan, it is crucial to choose measures that are research-based and offer data to support their reliability and validity (concepts covered in our Scoring page). Measures should also match your program’s purposes and identified outcomes (cost, usability, cultural relevance, and technical merit.)

Measures can be administered in various ways, depending on the topic, measure type, the individual taking the measure, and the environment they are taking the measure in. Measures can be administered electronically (on a computer, phone, or tablet), over the phone, and/or in-person. While some measures require extensive training for administration and may even require a licensed administrator, other measures might only need written instructions. The administration of a measure is a crucial factor in the decision-making process for choosing a measure.

Learn about how the IMPACT Measures Tool accounts for how measures are administered in the Scoring page.

The IMPACT Measures Tool database currently houses over 300 measures that are scored and categorized for easy search and comparison. We will be regularly updating our online database to provide information on additional measures.

The IMPACT Measures Tool includes measures in the areas of: caregiver health and well-being, child mental health, overall child development, social-emotional development, language development, executive function, academic skills, family/home environment, classroom/childcare quality, caregiver-child interaction, cultural competency, and healthcare/human services quality.

There are two ways we share information about measures offered in different languages:

1. As a specific measure scored individually.
2. As a descriptive category listing the languages that the measure has been translated into, as reported by the measure developer.

Note: There may be measures validated in languages that are not yet included in the database simply because they have not yet been included or scored.

All measures included in the IMPACT Measures Tool database are selected based on the following three main criteria: relevance to particular domains, availability of measure information, and membership to a measure family.

Domains include: caregiver health and well-being, child mental health, overall child development, social-emotional development, language development, executive function, academic skills, motor skills, family/home environment, classroom/childcare quality, caregiver-child interaction, cultural competency, and healthcare/human services quality.

Given our team’s expertise in early childhood as well as the lack of high-quality standardized measures in the field, we specifically focus on measures relevant to families with children ages zero to eight.

Measures from the same measure family (collection of individual measures which share the same core elements) are also included in the database.

In order for measures in additional languages to be scored as individual measures in a measure family, technical merit evidence must be available. Translations are included on the individual measure’s detailed page.

We encourage measure developers to reach out to our team if they have a measure they would like us to consider adding to the IMPACT website. In order to review and score a measure, the IMPACT team needs access to the website, manual, and/or original validation study. Inclusion of a measure depends on whether the measure falls within IMPACT’s scope of early childhood and parenting measures, as well as current project priorities and bandwidth; therefore, we cannot guarantee responses to all inquiries.

If you believe your measure meets the eligibility requirements and is not on our website, please email our team to submit:

1. Your website domain and any necessary logins to view the measure and materials.
2. Your manual and/or original validation study.

Please note, at this time we score measures based on one of the resources above to ensure all submissions are using similar sources, as we aim to promote an equitable process to measure selection from developers.

Please refer to our Scoring page,  Scoring Guidebook and Evidence Guide, which provide further information about our scoring process for measures.

We aim to provide as accurate and up-to-date information as possible, and we appreciate your input. All references used in scoring measures are posted to the measures page. If you are a measure developer and note this resource is out-of-date, you may resubmit your manual and/or submit your most recent validation study for rescoring up to one time per calendar year. Please email your updated reference to ecprism@instituteforchildsuccess.org. Please note, this resource will replace the existing resource and previously scored data.

Please check out our Scoring page for an overview of our scoring system. If you’d like more detailed information about how measures are scored, you can download our Scoring Guidebook.

No. The “Access Measure” button on the measure’s webpage will direct users to the publisher’s website where the measure can be downloaded or purchased.

The Institute for Child Success provides free access to the IMPACT Measures Tool as a resource of measure information, to empower individuals and organizations to make the best measurement choices for their unique needs. To achieve this, we serve as a third-party reviewer to provide basic information and scores about measures, and keep our measure information as up-to-date as possible. We welcome measure developer input, questions, and updated information, but we also reserve the right to include measure reviews for non-commercial use on our website, for measures that are publicly available in the early childhood field. If you have specific concerns or extenuating circumstances about your measure being included on the IMPACT Measures Tool, please reach out to us at ecprism@instituteforchildsuccess.org. Please note that we cannot guarantee removal of measures or scores from the IMPACT website due to dissatisfaction with scores or for other reasons.

No. The purpose of the IMPACT Measures Tool is to provide an impartial review of existing measures and make basic information about these measures available to the general public, to help those in the early childhood field select and use measures that fit the needs of their communities. IMPACT is not a publisher or distributor of measures. 

In addition to contacting our team at ecprism@instituteforchildsuccess.org, we encourage you to use the feedback feature at the bottom of each measure’s webpage. All visitors to the IMPACT Measures Tool website can view these comments, and they can be a useful tool for our community in learning of other resources and experiences. We thank you for engaging with the IMPACT Measures Tool and the IMPACT community!