Research Findings: Measures of home child care (HCC) quality are limited and tend to be labor intensive. This article presents the measure development process as well as psychometric, construct, convergent and discriminant validity analyses for the HCC version of the Assessment for Quality Improvement (HCC-AQI) measure. The HCC-AQI is part of a…

This study examined early childhood education and care (ECEC) utilization in Canada, focusing on use of unlicensed home child care (HCC) from an equity perspective. Data from the 2011 cycle of the General Social Survey (GSS) were used. Across Canada, parent responses reveal that 16.6% of children between the age of 12 months and entry to school…

In the development of early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy, it is important to understand parents' decision-making in terms of both preferences and pragmatic constraints. Traditional data collection techniques such as self-reported surveys can elucidate parental preferences, however, these may differ from their actual decisions. In our…

Efforts to monitor and improve responsive caregiving for young children, because of its importance for child development, are part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Two brief observational measures of responsive caregiving have been developed and validated (Responsive Interactions for Learning-parent [RIFL-P] and educator…

Research Findings: There is a growing need for accurate and efficient measures of classroom quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Observational measures are costly, as their administration generally takes 3-5 hr per classroom. This article outlines the process of development and preliminary concurrent validity testing of…

Based on a government document review, 25 stakeholder interviews, and 7 site visits, we examined how and why outdoor play became a focus of Scottish policy for early learning and care programs; we also documented opportunities and barriers to policy implementation. The outdoor play emphasis began as a bottom-up initiative, with a few early…

Research Findings: The Scottish government is in the process of transforming their early childhood learning and care landscape by doubling the number of free hours of childcare for families and by requiring that all children in care spend a significant portion of each day outdoors. Thus, the government is promoting outdoor play programs. We…

Research Findings: The amount and quality of communication between staff and guardians in child care centers was examined using extensive naturalistic observations. Interactions between staff and more than 1,000 guardians who dropped their child off at their child care center were captured through a series of 20-s time-sampled observations.…

Use of metacognitive language by child care center staff in classrooms that serve preschool-aged children was examined. Staff's use of mental-state talk, perspective-taking talk, and activity-relevant questioning with children were coded in a series of 20-s snapshots taken over the course of one full morning per classroom. A total of 3401…

The purpose of this study was to describe literacy instruction in child care centers, examine aspects of child care center quality that may predict such instruction, and provide a limited analysis of whether literacy instruction impacts children's concurrent pre-academic functioning. Staff and children in 103 classrooms serving preschool-age…

The psychometric properties of the Infant-Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition (ITERS-R) were examined using 153 classrooms from child-care centers where resources were tied to center performance. An exploratory factor analysis revealed that the scale measures one global aspect of quality. To decrease redundancy, subsets of items were…

Preschool-aged children are aware of differences in the race and abilities of the people around them. Given this awareness it is important to promote children's acceptance of diversity in the preschool period. The goals of this study were to assess the extent to which child care centres provide diversity instruction through classroom activities,…

Child-staff ratios are an important quality indicator. They are often collected by observing one randomly selected classroom several times during a 2-h period on a single day. However, it is unclear whether these measures represent the ratios that children actually experience during most of their time in care. This study compared ratio data…

As a result of the generally low quality of child care in the United States and the increased emphasis on accountability in education policy, quality rating systems (QRSs) are proliferating in the child-care arena. QRSs assess child-care providers on multiple dimensions of quality and integrate these assessments into an easily understood summary…

This paper discusses the conceptualization and measurement of Parent Child Care Involvement (PCCI) and questions whether PCCI should be included in high-stakes quality ratings. It presents data on several PCCI measures, including one used by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Parent Caregiver Relationship Scale…