Early childhood is a crucial stage in a child's life, and aspects of the environment in the physical, social-emotional, cognitive, and health and safety domains all play important roles in shaping ...children's development during these early years. Having a valid and reliable measure of the quality of these aspects of children's care settings is critical. The "Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale"® (ECERS-3) is the leading research-based instrument for examining these influential global factors that directly impact children in early childhood environments. In this new guide, readers will find an in-depth description of both the conceptual model underlying the ECERS-3 and innovative ways of analyzing data for a fuller understanding of what can be done with the scale and why it is integral to the evaluation of early care and education. The authors analyze a large database of classroom observations to help ECERS-3 users better understand, interpret, and utilize their own findings. Readers will also see how components of their ECERS-3 data relate to one another, within and across subscales, and within the scale as a whole. "A Guide to Analyzing and Interpreting ECERS-3 Data" will assist program directors, agency administrators, preK-K teaching coaches/mentors, school principals, researchers, and others who use the ECERS-3 to more successfully document, interpret, and analyze the quality of essential influential factors in an early learning setting. This resource will help guide program improvement initiatives with insight into what is needed for children's development and learning. Book features include: (1) Provides a framework for thinking about how early childhood care and education learning environments fit into the larger picture of influences on children's development; (2) Presents a theory of change that combines understanding how children learn and develop with how early education and care affect long-term outcomes; (3) Analyzes what ECERS-3 data looks like for a large sample of classrooms and by different child and teacher characteristics; and (4) Includes full color tables and figures illuminating the data analysis of the classroom observations. Foreword written by Debi Mathias.
Grouping children of different ages in the same preschool classroom (i.e., mixed age) is widespread, but the evidence supporting this practice is mixed. A factor that may play a role in the relation ...between classroom age composition and child outcomes is peer skill. This study used a sample of 6,338 preschoolers (ages 3–5) to examine the influence of both classroom age composition and peer skill on children’s behavioral and language outcomes. Results supported the growing literature indicating preschoolers’ skills are higher when peer skill is higher, but differences related to classroom age composition were not found. These findings further support the view that peer skill plays an important role in preschool children’s outcomes.
Large-scale education interventions aimed at diminishing disparities and generating equitable learning outcomes are often complex, involving multiple components and intended impacts. Evaluating ...implementation of complex interventions is challenging because of the interactive and emergent nature of intervention components. Methods that build from systems science have proven useful for addressing evaluation challenges in the complex intervention space. Complexity science shares some terminology with systems science, but the primary aims and methods of complexity science are different from those of systems science. In this paper we describe some of the language and ideas used in complexity science. We offer a set of priorities for evaluation of complex interventions based on language and ideas used in complexity science and methodologies aligned with the priorities.
•We examined quality change and supports in a quality rating and improvement system.•For both centers and homes, quality increased over time and was associated with duration.•For centers, ...scholarships were associated with quality change.•Supports were more associated with quality change for programs with shorter duration.
This descriptive study investigated the associations between change in quality and quality improvement supports among center-based programs and family child care homes within Miami-Dade County, Florida's tiered quality rating and improvement system (TQRIS), Quality Counts. The TQRIS supports included grants and financial awards for materials and equipment, educational scholarships for staff, and on-site technical assistance to raise quality. Data were extracted from a TQRIS information management system on 412 programs (342 center-based programs and 70 family child care homes) participating in the TQRIS from 2008 to 2013. Results indicated that across both types of care (centers and homes), quality increased over time. Duration, or amount of time in the TQRIS, was significantly related to quality change. Scholarship amounts received were also significantly related to quality change for centers. Interactions between dosage and supports suggested that some supports were associated with quality change for programs that were in the TQRIS for a shorter duration. The consistent findings regarding duration in the TQRIS and scholarships suggest the importance of supporting programs and their staff. Policy implications related to building TQRISs are discussed.
Early childhood classroom quality can be viewed from multiple perspectives—including parents, teachers, administrators, researchers, policymakers, and politicians. From the beginning of our work in ...the 1970s, we have defined and measured the quality of early learning environments with the Environment Rating Scales (ERS) from the perspective of the children in those environments. As quality definitions and measurement have changed through the decades since then, we have retained a focus on children’s perspectives and have continued to revise the ERS to better capture aspects of caregiver–child interactions and particularly language interactions as research has shown these to be particularly important for children’s development. We have maintained our view of the centrality of children’s needs across a wide range of developmental and personal health and safety domains so that teachers, directors, home-based providers, technical assistance personnel, policymakers, researchers, and others interested in high quality programming have tools to guide their work.
•Earlier enrollment in targeted high-quality ECE programs can multiply the benefits.•Selection factors into ECE for toddlers was different for DLLs and their peers.•Propensity score weights were ...applied to equate language and age of entry groups.•Toddler entry associated with better English language skills and mixed social-skills.•Language benefits for toddlers persisted one-year later in preschool.
Most early care and education (ECE) programs serve 3-5 year olds, but enrolling children at younger ages has the potential to multiply the benefits of ECE enrollment. This study examined characteristics of children and family who enrolled as toddlers (18-35 months; n=450) versus preschoolers (36-48 months; n=2,356), then tested the impact of toddler enrollment in high-quality ECE on fall and spring preschool outcomes for English-only and Spanish dual language learners (DLLs). Groups were balanced using propensity score weights. Toddler enrollment was related differentially to parent education, special needs status, food insecurity, and single-parent household status for DLLs and English-dominant peers. Toddler entry was related to better English language skills (fall E.S.=0.13-0.47; spring E.S.=0.10-0.43) and lower teacher-rated self-control skills (fall E.S.=0.12-0.15; spring E.S.=0.12-0.19) than same language peers. English-only children who entered as toddlers were rated as more independent at preschool entry (E.S.=0.15). Differences were not observed in Spanish-language skills, child-teacher attachment, or behavior problems in preschool.
Educare is a birth to age 5 early education program designed to reduce the achievement gap between children from low-income families and their more economically advantaged peers through high-quality ...center-based programming and strong school-family partnerships. This study randomly assigned 239 children (< 19 months) from low-income families to Educare or a business-as-usual control group. Assessments tracked children 1 year after randomization. Results revealed significant differences favoring treatment group children on auditory and expressive language skills, parent-reported problem behaviors, and positive parent-child interactions. Effect sizes were in the modest to medium range. No effects were evident for observer-rated child behaviors or parent-rated social competence. The overall results add to the evidence that intervening early can set low-income children on more positive developmental courses.
This study identified patterns of classroom and family experiences and developmental outcomes for young children in segregated early education. This study is based on data from a high-quality early ...education program serving young children from low-income households in 19 schools across the U.S. The sample included 1,521 children during the 2016-2017 school year. The analysis examined patterns of association between the racial/ethnic composition of Educare sites and family risk factors, classroom quality, and children's language and social-emotional performance and growth across the academic year. Research Findings: Findings indicated that although classroom quality, measured through traditional tools, did not vary by school racial/ethnic composition, sociodemographic risk factors, children's language and social-emotional outcomes did vary by this variable. Practice or Policy: We discuss our results in relation to promotive and inhibitive processed within and outside early education programs, as well as the continued impact of structural equities and lack of culturally responsive pedagogy on children's learning opportunities and development.
COVID-19 has led to a child care workforce and mental health crisis for staff, families, and children under age three (infants and toddlers). The current level of stress for children, families, and ...infant-toddler early care and education professionals and its impact on infant and toddler well-being needs our attention.
•Preschool teacher-child racial match may support Black preschoolers’ development.•Racialized ecological contexts should also be considered.•Racial match and behavior concerns were higher in Black ...majority schools.•Racial match predicted better social outcomes only in Black majority schools.•Assistant teacher racial match attenuated behavior concerns in segregated schools.
Teacher-child racial match has been shown to benefit young Black children, but less is known about the degree to which the match is with the lead teacher or the assistant, and if the preschool racial context moderates this association. This study utilized existing data collected during the 2014–15 through 2018–19 school years in 20 high-quality preschools that enrolled children from households/families with low-income. Analyses of data from 2553 preschool-age Black children enrolled in 418 classrooms revealed that most Black children (82%) were enrolled in preschools with a majority (>=50%) of Black peers, and children in Black Majority preschools were more likely to experience teacher-child racial match with lead and assistant teachers. Racial match with lead and/or assistant teachers were associated with teacher demographic and beliefs differences but not differences in classroom instructional support or child outcomes. Black Majority preschool enrollment was also associated with more problem-behaviors but not other outcomes. However, within Black Majority schools, behavior concerns were reduced when the assistant teacher was a racial match and child initiative was higher when both the teachers were a match. In sum, the effect of teacher-child racial match for Black children should be considered jointly with co-occurring ecological contexts that typify the proximal effects of systemic racism like the preschool racial composition.
