Kieran Bromley
School of Medicine
Measuring Child Development in Low and Middle income countries
The early years of a child ’ s life are foundational to their development and it is essential to promote longer-term health outcomes , especially in low-and-middleincome countries ( LMIC ). Robust , validated measurement tools , underpinned by sound statistical and psychometric methodologies , are therefore required to assess Early Child Development ( ECD ). Several tools have been recently created to measure ECD ( e . g ., the Malawi Development Assessment Tool ( MDAT )) in LMIC , assessing fine and gross motor , language , and social domains of development . This project aims to evaluate and recommend suitable methodologies for the scoring of ECD data whereby the non-linear relationship between development and age is adequately accounted for , by comparing Classical Test Theory , Rasch , and Item Response Theory approaches in a simulation study . Furthermore , ECD is typically modelled as unidimensional and considered as a single construct , however , subject matter experts believe development contains multiple domains . Hence , the dimensionality of ECD within the MDAT will be explored by fitting models in increasing complexity to see whether there are distinct domains of development . Finally , the impact of external contextual variables on ECD , such as gender , careprovider information , and socio-economic status will be investigated .
Postgraduate Conference 2021 Page 16