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I. Introduction

T his chapter lays the groundwork for a particular approach to knowledge management in response to exponential
growth of information about early childhood intervention research and practice. The chapter includes a descrip-
tion of how research evidence informed the development of early childhood intervention performance checklists and
practice guides, where the checklist indicators and practice guide content are based on research findings about the key
characteristics, active ingredients, and core elements of different kinds of practices related to outcomes of interest. The
term evidence-informed is used throughout the monograph to refer to the types of practice characteristics-outcome
relationships that have been reported primarily in practice-based research syntheses (Dunst, 2016, 2017b) where the
findings were used to inform the content of early childhood intervention products and tools (Dunst, 2017a; Dunst &
Trivette, 2012).
The term evidence-informed practices is used in a decidedly different way from what has generally been de-
scribed in the literature (e.g., Arnd-Caddigan, 2011; Nelson & Campbell, 2017; Tranfield, Denyer, & Smart, 2003).
Rather, the use of the term is aligned more closely with how Cordingley (2008) used evidence-informed to refer to an
emphasis on how research evidence is used to transform knowledge into products that can be used to improve different
kinds of intervention practices. As a result, the focus is on how evidence-based practices are ascertained, and how that
evidence informs the development of early childhood intervention products from the vantage points of end-users.
The monograph is divided into four sections. Section I includes a single chapter that describes one way in which
large amounts of research evidence was culled and used to inform product development, and how performance check-
lists and practice guides were prepared by adhering to a number of product design considerations. Section II includes
two chapters. The first includes a description of the framework for developing evidence-informed performance check-
lists, and the second includes a description of the evidence base for the checklist indicators. Section III includes four
chapters of findings from different field-test evaluations of the evidence-informed performance checklists and practice
guides. Section IV includes one chapter that presents a description of a particular approach to knowledge management
and sharing in response to continued exponential knowledge growth in the early childhood intervention literature. The
eight chapters in the monograph, taken together, illustrate one way in which knowledge management and sharing was
systematically done where the outcome was evidence-informed early childhood intervention products.
The monograph also includes three appendices. Appendix A includes the sources of evidence for 26 early child-
hood intervention performance checklists. Appendix B includes the sources of the 26 performance checklists as well
as references for other evidence-informed performance checklists. Appendix C includes sources of evidence-informed
early childhood intervention practice guides.

References

Arnd-Caddigan, M. (2011). Toward a broader definition of evidence-informed practice: Intersubjective evidence.
Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 92(4), 372-376. doi:10.1606/1044-3894.4160
Cordingley, P. (2008). Research and evidence-informed practice: Focusing on practice and practitioners. Cambridge
Journal of Education, 38, 37-52. doi:10.1080/03057640801889964
Dunst, C. J. (2016). Role of research syntheses for identifying evidence-based early childhood intervention practices.
In B. Reichow, B. A. Boyd, E. E. Barton, & S. L. Odom (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood special education
(pp. 541-563). Switzerland: Springer International.
Dunst, C. J. (2017a). Procedures for developing evidence-informed performance checklists for improving early child-
hood intervention practices. Journal of Education and Learning, 6(3), 1-13. Retrieved from http://www.ccsenet.
org/journal/index.php/jel/article/view/66005 doi:10.5539/jel.v6n3px
Dunst, C. J. (2017b). Research foundations for evidence-informed early childhood intervention performance check-
lists. Education Sciences, 7(4), Number 78. Retrieved from http://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/7/4/78 doi:10.3390/
educsci7040078

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