2025 International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study Technical Report

Authors

• Dan Cloney, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Alla Berezner, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Tim Friedman, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Jennifer Hong, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• David Jeffries, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Sandra Knowles, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Renee Kwong, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Dulce Lay, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Greg Macaskill, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Karen Wright, Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER)Follow
• Clara Beyer, IEA
• Diego Cortes, IEA
• Darrell Gwaltney, IEA
• Juliane Kobelt, IEA
• Rodrigo Leyton, IEA
• Florence Mitchell-Green, IEA
• Tahira Qadri, IEA

Publication Date

9-2026

Subjects

Young children, Child development, Preschool children, Preschool teachers, Preschool curriculum, Numeracy, Parent attitudes, International students, Early childhood education, Preschool education, Emergent literacy

Abstract

The International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study (IELS) provides internationally comparable data on the early learning, development and well-being of five-year-old children. This Technical Report documents the design, implementation and data processing procedures for the second cycle of IELS (IELS 2025). It provides a comprehensive account of the methodologies, standards and quality assurance processes used to support the transparency, reliability and international comparability of the study’s results. The report covers all major phases of IELS 2025, including the development of assessments and questionnaires, sampling design, translation and linguistic quality verification, field operations, survey weighting, the scaling of cognitive and contextual measures, data management, data adjudication and the preparation of the international database. It also describes the procedures used to promote consistent implementation across participating jurisdictions and to ensure the quality of the data collected.

Recommended Citation

Cloney, D., Berezner, A., Friedman, T., Hong, J., Jeffries, D., Knowles, S., Kwong, R., Lay, D., Macaskill, G., Wright, K., Beyer, C., Cortes, D., Gwaltney, D., Kobelt, J., Leyton, R., Mitchell-Green, F., & Qadri, T. (2026). 2025 International Early Learning and Child Well-being Study Technical Report. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/c677d782-en

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Statement

© OECD 2026 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Place of Publication

Paris, France

Publisher

OECD Publishing

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1787/c677d782-en

Geographic Subject

Azerbaijan, Brazil, United Kingdom, Belgium, China, Korea, South, Malta, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates