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yet another recommended practice, the term activities is through a more systematic approach to product develop-
used to refer to a particular (unspecified) type of transi- ment. This involved the process used to identify or devel-
tion practice. This can only be confusing to early child- op checklist indicators, the sources of research evidence
hood intervention practitioners (Colquhoun et al., 2014; that were the foundations for the checklist practices, and
Michie, Fixsen, Grimshaw, & Eccles, 2009). the ways in which the checklists were formatted and how
Consistency in how terms are used to convey simi- the instructions and indicators were written.
lar intent is necessary if practitioners are to be able to First, the selection or development of checklist in-
understand the key characteristics of intervention prac- dicators was guided by a conceptualization-operational-
tices or the behavior indicators of practices (Mitzkat, ization-measurement framework (Babbie, 2009) where
Berger, Reeves, & Mahler, 2016; Temmerman, 2000). each DEC recommended practice topic area was content
There is considerable inconsistency, for example, in how analyzed (to the extent possible) to identify different
different child characteristics function as person factors sets of practices where the key characteristics embedded
influencing learning and development (Bronfenbrenner, within the topic areas were initially used to develop or
1992, 1993) in the 2014 DEC recommended practices. select checklist indicators. In those cases where the topic
These person factors include, but are not limited to, those area practices could not be used to identify or develop
child personal characteristics that interact with person checklist indicators, evidence-based sources of infor-
and environment setting factors that help explain varia- mation were used to identify different types of practice
tions in child outcomes. These types of factors (charac- characteristics in each topic area. The process for doing
teristics) are described in the recommended practices as so is described in Dunst (2017a), Dunst et al. (2015), and
child’s strengths and needs; child’s strengths, preferenc- Chapter 3. This ensured that all performance checklists
es, and interests; child’s requests, needs, preferences or were prepared in similar formats where checklist indica-
interests; and child’s strengths, needs, preferences, and tors were the key characteristics of a particular type of
interests. The reason why all applicable recommended early childhood intervention practice.
practices do not include the full range of development- Second, the selection and development of the per-
enhancing child characteristics is not at all clear and, formance checklist indicators were informed by find-
more importantly, fails to communicate to practitioners ings reported in research syntheses of practice-outcome
which characteristics ought to be taken into consider- relationships and especially those reported in practice-
ation as part of child-focused intervention practices. based research syntheses (Dunst, 2016) where the active
ingredients, core components, and key characteristics
4.4. Summary and Conclusion of an early childhood intervention practice were found
to be related to outcomes of interest. An explicit effort
This section of the chapter included descriptions of was made to include only practice indicators where re-
major problems and concerns with (1) the lack of speci- search evidence was available to support the use of the
ficity of the 2014 DEC recommended practices, (2) the indicators to produce outcomes of interest. The evidence
lack of research evidence for the recommended practices, included findings from more than 200 research reviews
and (3) the failure to adhere to basic product design con- of practice-outcome relationships. The evidence is de-
siderations. Converging sets of qualitative and quantita- scribed in Dunst (2017b) and Chapter 3.
tive evidence were used to highlight some, but certainly Third, the formatting, organization, and terminol-
not all of the problems and concerns with the 2014 DEC ogy used in writing the performance checklists (and
recommended practices. This necessitated considerable practice guides) were done in ways informed by gener-
license in terms of how the recommended practices were ally accepted guidelines and principles for ensuring the
used to select or develop performance checklist indica- products facilitate practitioner learning, understand-
tors and why, in many instances, there was a need to look ing, memory, and performance (e.g., Crowder, 2015;
elsewhere for the sources of checklist indicators and the Schwartz, 2014). This included, but was not limited to,
research evidence for the indicators.
the evidence-informed guidelines, principles, and rec-
ommendations described in Cabre (1999), Lemarie et al.
5. Approach to Developing Evidence- (2012), Lidwell et al. (2003), Lohr and Gall (2008), and
Informed Performance Checklists and Temmerman (2000). As a result, the performance check-
Practice Guides lists and practice guides were all written in parallel ways
so that practitioners do not need to reorient themselves
he problems, concerns, and challenges unearthed in the as they move from one product to another (e.g., Kintsch,
Tcourse of using the 2014 DEC recommended practices 1998). This ensured consistency within and between per-
for identifying or developing evidence-informed perfor- formance checklists and practice guides.
mance checklist indicators were addressed and overcome The approach to developing performance check-

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