Structural, global, and specific features of day care quality and children's development
Abstract
Examination of the day care literature reveals three ways to measure day care quality. They are, examination of structural or regulatable features of the day care setting, global examinations and specific examinations of the day care setting. This study used NAEYC's developmentally appropriate practice guidelines as a theoretical and practical tool to isolate specific features of day care quality and their effects on children's development. Three forms of specific quality were identified from the guidelines: caregiver goals, strategies and guidance. Caregiver goals were assessed via educational attitudes. Assessment of caregiver strategies was defined as the facilitation of children's learning through preparation of the environment and caregiver-child interaction. Caregiver guidance took the form of praising, nurturing and redirective interactions and the setting of clear limits. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to determine the efficacy of specific quality in predicting children's development after controlling for child and family background factors. The subjects were sixty children, ages 3-5, and their caregivers (N = 30). The children and caregivers represented thirty day care classrooms from 24 licensed centers in central Indiana. Some form of day care quality predicted four of the six developmental outcome measures. When analyzed as composite variables, specific quality was not related to children's development. However, when the specific quality variables were divided into their component pieces, they were just as effective in predicting children's development as structural quality variables. While global quality was quite high in the sample it was not an effective predictor of children's development. In general, day care factors were more effective in predicting children's social development than cognitive development. This supports previous work regarding the specificity of environmental effects on various domains of children's development.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Kontos, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Families & family life|Personal relationships|Sociology|Preschool education|Developmental psychology
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