The Examination of Developmental Evaluation Tools Used in The Theses of Graduate Theses in Turkey

Children are in constant growth and development. It is rather important to evaluate the development of those children in the process of growth and development. The child development studies help the improvement of realistic expectations about children, the immediate recognition of the children’s behavior that deviates from normal during improvement period and the making of a proper direction. The specialists studying over children can evaluate the development of child by using formal and informal tools. Standardized and/or non-standardized measurement tools are used in the evaluation of developments in Turkey, and the studies using these tools are published in the literature. One of the important problems related to infancy and early childhood period in our country is stated as the fact that developmental evaluations of children in this period are conducted using methods with no scientific validity from time to time. Therefore, the studies for determining the developmental evaluation tools used in studies made to determine children is gaining importance. Depending on this, it is aimed to investigate the tools of developmental evaluation used in graduate theses in Turkey. This study was made with document analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods. Criterion sampling method was used for determining the sampling. The use of developmental evaluation tools in graduate theses archived by the Higher Education Council National Thesis Center and the publication of the thesis in the last fifteen years were accepted as criteria in the study and 298 graduate theses meeting this criterion were examined. According to the results of this study, it was concluded that standardized developmental assessment tools are widely used in Turkey in graduate theses, the most frequently used tools are "Denver II Developmental Assessment Tools" and "Ankara Developmental Screening Inventory", and developmental assessment tools are frequently used in hospitals.  When examined in sampling groups, it was determined that they commonly focused on children in early childhood period.  Conclusion, developmental assessment is too important to reduce to a single tool. It should be noted that developmental assessment is comprehensive and the result of the assessment affects the life of the child and the family.