Understanding Young Designers: Development and Validation of the Early Design Thinking Scale (EDTS)

Design thinking (DT) in early childhood education has received increasing attention; however, scalable research is constrained by the lack of DT assessments suitable for young children. To address this gap, we developed and validated a teacher-report scale – the Early Design Thinking Scale (EDTS) in this study. By synthesizing an established DT model with empirical findings from early childhood DT literature, we initially generated a 30-item pool and refined it to a 23-item, five-dimension (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test) scale. Research Findings: Using psychometric cross-validation involving 35 teachers and 417 preschoolers (Mage = 4.79, SD = .95), exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the retention of the five dimensions and 21 of the 23 items. The refined scale demonstrated good convergent and discriminant validity, with the average variance extracted for each dimension ranging from .72 to .82. McDonald’s omega coefficients for the five factors ranged from .92 to .95, indicating good internal reliability. Practice or Policy: The EDTS provides a reliable and valid tool for researchers and practitioners to assess young children’s DT. It can support program evaluation and, in turn, inform instructional planning and efforts to promote children’s DT learning and development in early childhood settings.