Commissioned Reports

Development of a School Readiness Index for Canadian Preschoolers: A Methodological Report and Time Series Analysis

Cameron N. McIntosh
Health Information and Research Division, Statistics Canada

and

Dafna E. Kohen
Health Information and Research Division, Statistics Canada Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, University of Ottawa

Background and Goal

Summary (PDF, 30 KB)

Full Report (PDF, 377 KB)

School Readiness Index (PDF, 276 KB)

Determining children’s readiness for school is of considerable importance from both an educational research and policy perspective.

The purpose of the current paper is twofold. In the first part, we describe the methodological steps used in the development of a statistical function to estimate school readiness scores for Canadian preschoolers; in the second part, we present our estimates in a provincial-level time series analysis for the years 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004.

Description

An initial conceptual model outlining five proposed domains of school readiness was used as a guide in assembling the data sources and carrying out multivariate statistical modeling:

  1. Health and Physical Well-Being and Motor Development,
  2. Social and Emotional Development,
  3. Approaches to Learning,
  4. Language and Communication Skills, and
  5. Cognition and General Knowledge.

 

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