The measurement properties of the Teaching Strategies GOLD^® assessment system

The Teaching Strategies GOLD^® assessment system (GOLD^®) is a teacher rating system (authentic performance assessment) child observation tool designed to measure the on-going development and learning progress of children birth through kindergarten across various domains: social-emotional, physical, language, cognitive, literacy, mathematics, and English language acquisition. This article explores evidence for the reliability and validity of the information provided by GOLD^® using two national samples (n₁=10,963, n₂=20,970). Support for the reliability and validity of scales scores based on teacher ratings is reported, including confirmatory factor analysis, classical and modern indexes of reliability, and inter-rater reliability statistics. In a separate study, concurrent validity was explored using a different sample of 3-and-4-year-olds (n=1241). Accounting for teacher ratings and clustering effects, moderate associations were found between GOLD^® scale scores and a direct assessment measure. Implications for teachers using the measure in the early childhood classroom and for future research are discussed.