A Multi-Instrument Examination of Preschool Classroom Quality and the Relationship Between Program, Classroom, and Teacher Characteristics

Teacher work environments are toddler learning environments: teacher professional well-being, classroom emotional support, and toddlers’ emotional expressions and behaviours

“…Sixteen of the 117 participating programmes cancelled their scheduled observations, leaving a total sample of 101 childcare programmes (a participation rate of 31.3%). Although these response rates are lower than many national studies, the rates are similar to other studies of state childcare systems (Denny, Hallam, & Homer, 2012). The final sample consisted of 16 1-star (16%), 13 2-star (13%), 24 3-star (25%), 21 4-star (22%), and 23 5-star (24%) centre-based programmes, which was quite comparable to the distribution of the rating levels across the state with an intentional oversample of 1-star and 2-star programmes to improve power for detecting differences related to rating levels.…”

The development of interaction skills in preservice teacher education: A mixed-methods study of Dutch pre-service teachers

“…This study also suggests, with previous studies of quality assessment in ECEC practice, that additional investments are needed to achieve higher levels of instructional support in ECEC practice. Studies also show that qualified ECEC teachers appear to be relatively proficient in offering emotional support, but markedly weaker when it comes to instructional support, including studies from various countries, like Estonia and Finland (Lerkkanen et al 2012), Germany (von Suchodoletz et al 2014) and the United States (e.g., Denny et al 2012). The findings from our study suggest that relatively extensive training may be required to improve the instructional skills of ECEC teachers after they have completed their teacher education program.…”

Improving the Lives of Teachers in the Early Care and Education Field to Better Support Children and Families

“…A teacher's knowledge base increasingly includes, at a minimum, an understanding of child development, ECE pedagogy, and techniques for working with families. However, for many teachers, there are few state requirements and low standards regarding what they must know to be teachers, despite an abundance of research demonstrating the relationship between teacher education, classroom quality, and child outcomes (Castle et al, ; Denny, Hallam, & Homer ; Hestenes et al, ).…”