Administration

Administration in LEVANTE covers data collection from children, caregivers, and teachers.

Data collection with children

Sites have substantial flexibility around administration, but should strive whenever possible for consistent administration across children (e.g., all on tablets or all on computers) so as to avoid confounding of contextual factors and administration details; when this is not possible, explicit justification should be given.

School-based administration

• Must have access to primary caregivers for questionnaire completion, a plan for questionnaire administration, and follow-up for missing forms.
• Preference for the inclusion of administrative records per student and teacher survey regarding classroom setting (to be applied to all participants from a particular classroom and/or school as appropriate).

In-person family-based administration

(In lab or at home)

• Must have access to primary caregivers for questionnaire completion, a plan for caregiver form completion, and follow-up for missing forms.
• School administration records and teacher surveys are desirable but not required.
• Locations could include participants’ homes, a clinic setting, library, or other appropriate location convenient to participants (include plan for ensuring families have access to a device and internet connection).
• Plan for who will monitor participants during individual assessment (e.g. caregiver, research assistant, etc).

Remote family-based administration

• Sites must have access to primary caregivers for questionnaire completion, a plan for caregiver form completion, and follow-up for missing forms.
• School administration records and the distribution of teacher forms are desirable but not required.
• Sites should make a detailed plan for infrastructure around remote data collection (e.g. internet access, devices, monitoring, etc.)

Administration guidelines by age

• For ages 2;0 – 4;11, participants should have an appropriate adult overseeing individual administration (e.g. teacher, research assistant, caregiver). Adults should receive a briefing on helping the child to access the platform, stay on task, and move through the assessment queue while refraining from assisting the child with the tasks.
• Individual administration as per above is strongly recommended for children 5;0 - 6;11, but small group-based administration might be possible.
• For ages 5;0 – 11;11, individual administration as described above OR group based administration can be employed. For group administration (e.g. in a classroom setting), participants should receive an introductory description of the process, information on how to ask for help, and an emphasis on the importance of staying on task.

Timing

Measures are under active development at the moment. Projected timing for administration of core measures is as follows:

• Child assessment: <60 minutes
• Caregiver questionnaires: 30+ minutes
• Teacher questionnaires (if school-based): 15 minutes

At the discretion of sites, child assessments can be broken into 2-3 sessions.

Caregiver questionnaires are estimated to take an average of 30 minutes, but timing can vary substantially based on literacy, medium of administration, etc.

Technical requirements

The LEVANTE direct assessment measures can be administered on any tablet or computer with a web browser and internet connection. In the case of uncertainty, task demos on the Direct Child Measures page can be used for testing.

We do not recommend administration on smartphones due to their small screen size.

For administration of tasks in low-connectivity contexts, offline task functionality is being developed.

Data collection with caregivers and teachers

Caregiver and teacher surveys can be administered electronically via links. This is the preferred method of administration.

Sites that are not recruiting through schools need not administer teacher surveys.

In the case that electronic administration is not possible, other possible methods include:

• Phone or in-person interview with responses entered by an enumerator on a tablet or computer
• Paper administration

Paper administration is dispreferred due to challenges associated with re-entering data into the LEVANTE dashboard.