Beyond repeating and growing patterns: Validating an instrument of rotating pattern understanding in preschool children

Research on patterning skills in preschool children has mostly focused on repeating and growing patterns. This study introduced rotating patterns as an additional pattern type and validated a self-designed instrument to assess 138 Cantonese-speaking preschool children’s (age in years: M = 4.98, SD = .33) understanding of rotating patterns based on three-wave longitudinal data. Rasch modeling was employed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the instrument. The results suggested that our instrument assessed a unidimensional construct, with items exhibiting local independence and covering a broad spectrum of easy, medium, and high difficulty levels. The instrument also possessed adequate reliability and was associated with measures of arithmetic competence and Chinese word reading, providing evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. While most items were found to be longitudinally invariant, some displayed differential functioning over time, suggesting changes in item difficulty over the assessment period. Overall, the validated instrument appears suitable for evaluating the rotating patterning skill of children aged 5 to 6 years. This study makes an important contribution by expanding the conceptualization of preschoolers’ patterning abilities to include rotating patterns, a previously underexplored domain. The psychometrically robust instrument presented in this research can also be readily utilized by scholars to further investigate the development and educational implications of children’s patterning skills.