Redefining the Measurement of Early Childhood Program Quality and Child Outcomes
Holly M. King, Cognia
Research has shown that early childhood education is critically important to children’s later success in school and in life. Neuroscience has categorically proven that the first five years of life are the most critical for optimal brain development. The question has become, what indicators of quality give us the best return on investment, and how do we measure and promote those quality indicators? The early childhood field acknowledges that structural quality and process quality elements work together to create the synergy resulting in high quality programs that lead to desired child outcomes. However, there continues to be debate about the concrete components of high quality and the precise combination of elements that result in consistent, significant, and lasting positive impacts for children.
Research to this point has focused on measuring agreed-upon indicators of quality and then looking at their impacts on children’s development and outcomes. Instead, this paper proposes that research needs to examine programs where desired child outcomes are consistently strong and examine those program practices to identify correlated indicators of quality. This reverse approach may assist the early childhood field to identify critical components of quality that have not yet been considered or have been only minimally studied. Then the field can focus on helping programs improve those components, rather than continuing to measure and rate elements of quality that have previously been identified but that don’t strongly correlate with child outcomes. Developing a shared understanding of desired child outcomes that are associated with children’s long-term academic, career, and life success—along with subsequent identification of a common set of indicators observed in high quality programs that correlate to these outcomes—would enable early childhood programs to become more consistent in accurately assessing meaningful elements of quality and to identify specific actions for continuous improvement.
- Define a common set of desired child outcomes including both short-term success for school readiness with sustained academic and social gains; and long-term success in career and life.
- Invest in the creation and validation of developmentally appropriate, holistic measures of child outcomes, with a special emphasis on measures that address gaps in current research.
- Develop and fund well-designed experimental studies to identify the specific combination(s) of quality elements that provide positive impacts on child outcomes, resulting in a common set of quality indicators linked to outcomes.
- Review existing measures, as well as develop and validate additional measures of program quality to reflect the common set of indicators that result in child outcomes.
- Invest in rigorous longitudinal studies to document links between high quality programs and short- and long-term positive impacts on child outcomes.
This approach, informed by policy and research, provides a strong return on investment: it develops a shared understanding of measurable indicators and outcomes to influence strategic funding of high quality programs that impact child outcomes. It also allows funders to make informed decisions. At the same time, it reduces confusion and conflicting requirements for early childhood programs that strive to implement high quality education.
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