Back to Basics: Developmental Catalysts of Quality Improvement in Early Education and Care

Abstract

Children’s experiences in early education programs can have a profound influence on their cognitive, social, and emotional development. In these settings, interactions with educators serve as catalysts for children’s healthy development. Yet too few children today are in the types of high-quality early learning environments marked by warm, cognitively stimulating exchanges. This review summarizes research on the features of settings that promote growth in children’s skills across a range of developmental domains, then describes research documenting these features across today’s early education and care landscape. Turning to strategies for cultivating these features across the diverse early education and care system, the discussion focuses on the central role of the educator. The conclusion draws implications for ongoing public preK expansion and quality improvement efforts, as well as highlights opportunities for future research to further these efforts.

Linking Features of Structural and Process Quality Across the Landscape of Early Education and Care

“…A large body of research emphasizes the importance of quality for children’s learning in early education and care programs (e.g., Hamre, 2014; Hanno et al, 2021; Markowitz et al, 2017; Mashburn et al, 2008), but little work considers the finer-grained, molecular features of process quality across multiple types of early education and care programs, nor has it examined them in relation to oft-regulated structural features. Using unique data from a statewide study of early education and care in Massachusetts, we first documented quality features across the landscape of group-based early education and care in the state.…”

Improving Measurement Efficiency of an Early Education Quality Monitoring Tool for Majority World Countries

“…For example, educators in classrooms with low child-adult ratios may have more opportunities to provide responsive interactions to children. While the general principles from these findings are intended to be universal (i.e., warm and responsive interactions matter for child development regardless of the setting), the specific ways in which these high-quality features are manifested in practice (i.e., what is considered a "warm" or "responsive" interaction in the local setting) are likely to vary from context to another [23]. Therefore, in addition to considering these findings from the developmental sciences, measures should also consider local stakeholders' views of quality.…”

Profiles of Quality in Three Distinct Early Childhood Programs Using the Brief Early Childhood Quality Inventory (BEQI)

“…Even in countries where quality measures have been developed, specific groups of early childhood professionals report feeling that the measures do not represent their practices well, leading to overall skepticism of quality measurement (Tonyan et al, 2017). Results from existing measures can be difficult to translate into practice, in part because existing scales' structures make it challenging to identify specific changes to make (Hanno et al, 2021). The perceived lack of alignment and inability to implement changes may lead to limited impact of the data from quality measures on changes in practices.…”