A Study on Reliability and Validity of the Assessment of Child Care Environmen (ACCE) Scale for Korean

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability and validity of Assessment of Child Care Environment (ACCE) Scale. ACCE has been designed since 1996 to identify the risks of child care environment and to assess the environments at homes of children up to the age of two years. All the studied 266 subjects were children at age of about 18 months of age and their main caregivers, participating in the compulsory health check-up. The subjects responded to an interview and an observation. To examine the reliability and validity of this scale, content validity through the confirmatory factor analysis, criterion oriented validity through correlation between the ACCE and HOME, test of physical development, teaching scale and educational level of the parents was examined. As for the reliability of ACCE was also examined with Cronbach α. Assessment of Child Care Environment (ACCE) Scale for Korean were reflected HOME Inventory (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment, no date, Caldwell, BM), EES (Evaluation of Environmental Stimulation, 1992, Anme), and the cultural characteristics of the Korean society. From a pool of over 80 items, 18 were selected through field tests , pass rate and item analysis. The results were as follows ; 1) As for content validity, ACCE is composed of four factors : appropriate stimulation to development , social-cognitive, physical stimulation and appropriate environment, 2) As for the criterion oriented validity, a significant correlation between the ACCE and HOME (0.58), test of physical development (0.28), teaching scale (0.32) as well as educational level of the parents was confirmed. 3) The reliability of ACCE was also confirmed with Cronbach α 0.82.