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Linking Program Quality and Child Outcomes in Early Childhood Settings
States and the federal government have invested in early care and education programs with an
explicit goal of improving school readiness for low-income children. These investments, aimed at
strengthening the quality of care and supporting families' access to high-quality settings, are based in part on a confluence of research findings showing a link between program quality and children's outcomes. Two new Child Trends research briefs examine this link and how it is measured.
Early Care and Education Quality and Child Outcomes
While research to date is quite consistent in showing that measures of quality in early care
and education settings and measures of children's development are linked when examined in
individual research studies, there has not been a systematic examination of the strength of these
relationships across multiple studies. This research brief summarizes 97 findings from 20 research projects.
Evaluating, Developing, and Enhancing Domain-Specific Measures of Child Care Quality
This research brief explores areas for refining, extending, and developing measures of quality for early childhood education and school-age care settings. Existing measures of quality may not capture adequately those aspects of practice and children's experiences that are linked most closely to children's development. The brief identifies the practices and aspects of the environment that support specific domains of children's school readiness (language and literacy; math, science, and general cognitive development; social-emotional development; and health, safety, and nutrition), as well as two specific contexts of development (families and culture).
These briefs are part of a series of briefs released this week that examines quality in early childhood settings. The series was prepared by Child Trends for the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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