In an effort to address these broad issues, we pose five specific questions:
3. Associations between cumulative observed home quality and child adjustment at 36 months, controlling for site, mother education, income-to-needs, mother psychological adjustment, child gender, percent time in centers, hours in care, and child care quality.
Table 7
Notes: Equations also include maternal ratings, income to needs, gender, HOME total score, maternal stimulation, average hours per week in childcare, number times in center care, number times in child care home.
Thus, a variety of factors must be considered if we are to determine whether associations between child care quality and children’s developmental outcomes are large enough for parents, researchers, and policy makers to care about, and whether effects warrant public or private expenditures to improve quality.
The Observational Record of the Caregiving Environment (ORCE) was developed to address these limitations (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1996, in press-a). Because psychological theory and research have indicated the central role of experiences with caring adults for children’s well-being and development, the ORCE focuses on this domain. Both time sampled behavioral counts of caregiver actions (e.g., responds to vocalization, asks questions, speaks negatively) and qualitative ratings of those behaviors over time to characterize caregivers’ behavior with individual children are collected during a minimum of four 44-minute observation cycles spread over a two-day period. At the end of each 44-minute cycle, observers use 4-point ratings scaled from 1 = not at all characteristic to 4 = highly characteristic to describe caregiver behavior. A positive caregiving composite score is created by obtaining a mean score across scales over all of the ORCE cycles at a given age period. Higher scores indicate caregivers who are more sensitive and responsive to a child’s needs, who are warm and positive, who are cognitively stimulating, and who are not detached or hostile. Unlike the ECERS, personal micro loans Columbus ITERS, or FDCRS, the ORCE can be used in all types of child care and with children across the first five years. Age-appropriate behavioral descriptors for caregivers’ behaviors with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are provided.
Relations between structural and caregiver characteristics and process quality are well-documented in the research literature. Table 1 is a compilation of the studies conducted in the United States that have considered this issue. The table includes information regarding sample size, type of care setting, the structural and caregiver characteristics that were measured, the process quality measures that were collected, and findings that were obtained. As indicated in Table 1, some studies have considered bivariate relations between structural and caregiver characteristics, and process quality using Pearson correlations and t-tests. Other studies (Blau, in press; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1996, in press-a; Phillipsen, Burchinal, Howes, and Cryer, 1997) utilized multiple regression techniques in an effort to isolate the relative impact of different characteristics. As documented on the table, the multivariate results are consistent with the bivariate and global composite analyses. As is evident in Table 1, studies have considered both global composites of structural and caregiver characteristics and individual factors in relation to process quality (Howes, 1990; Vandell and Powers, 1983).
Although much of the research literature has reported significant relations between structural and caregiver characteristics, and process quality, Blau (in press) has cautioned that these associations may be the result of uncontrolled factors that are confounded with the structural and caregiver characteristics. He argues that these confounding factors might include center policies, curriculum, and directors’ leadership skills. To address this perceived shortcoming, Blau conducted secondary analyses on 274 child care centers that were part of the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study. In his first set of analyses, Blau conducted regressions to determine if individual structural and caregiver characteristics were associated with process quality when other factors (teacher, family, center characteristics) were controlled. His findings were consistent with other reports. When child:adult ratios were larger, ITERS and ECERS scores were lower. When caregivers had attended college or training workshops and when caregivers had college degrees in fields related to child care, ECERS scores were higher.
As an example of this strategy, the NICHD Study of Early Child Care has utilized three criteria for identifying family variables that are then used as selection controls in analyses: (1) the family characteristic is significantly related to child care, (2) the family characteristic is related to the child outcome of interest, and (3) the family characteristic is not highly related to other family factors. The third criterion is applied to reduce collinearity among family characteristics.
The Conceptual Model
Process Quality and Children’s Behavior in Other Settings. The next issue is whether process quality is related to children’s behavior in other settings. Several studies (see Table 2) have found higher quality child care is associated with better performance on standardized language tests, even when family characteristics are controlled (Burchinal et al., 1996; Dunn, Beach, and Kontos, 1994; Goelman, 1988; McCartney, 1984; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, in press-b; Peisner-Feinberg and Burchinal, 1997; Schliecker, White, and Jacobs, 1991). These relations are evident when the process measure is a global score such as the ITERS, ECERS, or FDCRS, and when the process measure focuses more narrowly on caregiver language stimulation. It is notable that associations between process quality and language performance are evident for child care that occurs in both centers and homes.
Observations of children’s experiences in classrooms and child care homes suggest why these relations might occur. Children are more likely to engage in language activities, complex play with objects, and creative activities in their classrooms when teachers have bachelor degrees in child-related fields (Howes, 1997). Toddlers are more likely to talk with their caregivers and to engage in complex play when classrooms have smaller child:adult ratios (Howes and Rubenstein, 1985). Toddlers are more likely to cry and to have their actions restricted in classrooms in which group sizes are larger (Howes and Rubenstein, 1985). In child care homes, positive caregiving is more likely when group sizes are smaller, caregivers are more educated, and caregivers have more specialized training pertaining to children (Clarke-Stewart et al., 2000).
Alternative Views. As shown in Table 3, some investigators have not found relations between child care quality and later developmental outcomes. For example, Chin-Quee and Scarr (1994) did not find evidence of long-term effects in a longitudinal follow-up of the Bermuda study. In the initial study, concurrent associations were reported between process quality as measured by the ECERS and child developmental outcomes (McCartney, 1984; Phillips et al., 1987). In the follow-up study, teachers rated social competence (peer relations and cooperative behavior) and academic achievement for 97 of the original sample of 166, when children were in grades 1 and 2 (Time 2) and grades 3 and 4 (Time 3). Associations between the quality indicators during the preschool years and competence at school were tested with hierarchical regressions in which parental values, age of entry into care, and total amount of child care before school entry were controlled. Neither the global quality score nor the specific measures of caregiver language predicted children’s social competence and academic achievement at Time 2 or Time 3.
Even though only a few studies have followed children into adulthood, it is notable that all find some evidence of long-term gains.