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CHILD CARE QUALITY: PROCEDURAL QUALITY
EARLY HEAD START EVALUATION AND TRACKING PRE-K
Measure: Early Head Start Child-Caregiver Observation System
Source
The birth-to-3 phase of the Early Head Start (EHS) evaluation (1996–2001) was funded by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The contractor for the evaluation is Mathematica Policy Research, and the subcontractor is the Center for Children and Families at Columbia University, Teachers College. The Tracking Pre-K (TPK) follow-up phase (2001–2004) is also funded by the ACF, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) is the contractor. In 1997, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) provided funds (through ACYF) to add a major study of the fathers of EHS children.
The Child-Caregiver Observation System (C-COS) was developed by Mathematica Policy Research under purchase order 43-31KV-7-D0015 from the National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. The C-COS and the original manual and training materials were developed with funds from the Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Contract 105-95-1936 as part of MPR’s work in conducting the national evaluation of the EHS programs. The C-COS was created from two observation procedures: the Observational Record of the Caregiving Environment (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1997) developed for the NICHD study of early child care and the Adult Involvement Scale developed by Carollee Howes (Howes & Smith, 1995).
Population Assessed
The EHS and TPK follow-up was implemented in 17 EHS programs in all regions of the country. Programs offered center-based, home-based, and mixed-approach services. The families and children who participated in the evaluation were diverse. Many of the families were single-parent, were ethnically diverse (including Hispanic, African American, and White), did not speak English as their primary language, had relatively low educational attainment, and were receiving public assistance of some kind (e.g., Medicaid, WIC, food stamps, AFDC or TANF, and SSI benefits). A total of 3,001 families participated in the evaluation, with 1,513 in the treatment group and 1,488 in the control group. Table 1 contains specifics of the families and children participating in the EHS evaluation.
| Sample in All Sites | ||
|---|---|---|
| Characteristic | Sample Size | Percent of Families |
| Parent and Family Characteristics | ||
| Mother's Education | ||
| Less than grade 12 | 1,375 | 48 |
| Grade 12 or attained a GED | 822 | 29 |
| Greater than grade 12 | 682 | 24 |
| Missing | 122 | |
| Race and Ethnicity | ||
| White Non-Hispanic | 1,091 | 37 |
| Black Non-Hispanic | 1,014 | 35 |
| Hispanic | 693 | 24 |
| Missing | 68 | |
| Welfare Receipt | ||
| Received welfare | 842 | 35 |
| Did not receive welfare | 1,554 | 65 |
| Missing | 41 | |
| Primary Language | ||
| English | 2,265 | 79 |
| Other | 615 | 21 |
| Missing | 121 | |
| Living Arrangements | ||
| With spouse | 752 | 25 |
| With other adults | 1,157 | 39 |
| Alone | 1,080 | 36 |
| Missing | 12 | |
| Focus Child Characteristics | ||
| Age | ||
| Unborn | 761 | 25 |
| Less than 5 months | 1,063 | 35 |
| 5 months or older | 1,177 | 39 |
| Missing | 0 | |
| Gender | ||
| Male | 1,510 | 51 |
| Female | 1,448 | 49 |
| Missing | 43 | |
| Sample Size | 3,001 | |
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2001, June).
Periodicity
The C-COS was administered when the children were 14-, 24-, and 36-months old.
Subscales/Components
The C-COS is a child-focused observation system that is used to ascertain the experiences of children in the caregiving environment (i.e., frequency and quality of caregiving behaviors directed toward an individual child). Information about subscales for the C-COS is not readily available. However, it consists of eight coding categories:
- Type of caregiver talk (A): responds to focus child’s talk, uses language or communication requested, action requested, reads, engages in other talk/singing
- Who focus child talks to (B): self or unknown, other child(ren), direct provider, other caregivers
- Who focus child is interacting with or attending to (C): other child(ren) or group, caregiver, material, television or video, none (wandering/unoccupied)
- Instances of high affect and aggressive behavior directed toward focus child or from focus child (D): smiling/laughing, acting upset/crying, being hit/bothered by other child, hitting/biting/bothering other child
- Who was main caregiver interacting or attempting to interact with focus child (E): direct provider of care, other caregiver, all caregivers roughly equal, no interaction
- Caregiver behavior toward focus child (F): ignoring or no interaction, all negative interaction, mostly negative or mostly positive, all positive/neutral
- Focus child behavior toward caregiver (G): ignoring or no interaction, all negative interaction, mostly negative or mostly positive, all positive/neutral
- Focus child behavior toward other children (H): ignoring or no interaction, all negative interaction, mostly negative or mostly positive, all positive/neutral
Procedures for Administration
A trained observer administers the C-COS. The observation is conducted over a 2-hour time period using time sampling. Every 20 minutes the observer begins an observation of the focal child that lasts for 5 minutes. During the 5-minute period, the observer is prompted by an audiotape to observe the focus child for 20 seconds and to record the codes for 10 seconds. At the end of each 5-minute period, the observer completes three ratings including the overall quality of the caregiver’s behavior toward the child, the child’s behavior toward the caregiver, and the child’s behavior toward other children in the setting. The C-COS is used with children aged 1 through 5 and can be used to observe quality in any type of child care setting. It is also frequently used with the Arnett Scale and the ITERS, FDCRS, and/or ECERS. For the eight coding categories, the observer records A through E during the 10-second record period described above. F through H are completed at the end of the 5-minute periods. An observer can code more than one category for categories A through D.
Psychometrics/Data Quality
Psychometrics and data-quality information is not readily available for the C-COS.
Languages Available
The C-COS developers do not expressly state availability of the measure in languages other than English.
Items Included
As described above, there are no items involved in the C-COS. The following table shows the recording form that is used for the C-COS observation. It is reprinted here from Boller and Sprachman’s The Child-Caregiver Observation System Instructor’s Manual.
 |
| [D] |
References and Source Documents
Boller, K., & Sprachman, S. (1998). The Child-Caregiver Observation System Instructor’s Manual. Mathematica Policy Research, Inc: Princeton, NJ
Howes, C., & Smith, E. (1995). Relations among child care quality, teacher behavior, children’s play activities, and cognitive activity in child care. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 10, 381-404.
NICHD Early Child Care Research Network (1996). Characteristics of infant child care: Factors contributing to positive caregiving. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 11, 269–306.
A number of reports are available on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Web site: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/ehs/ehs_resrch/index.html
The reports include the following:
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2002, December). Pathways to quality and full implementation in Early Head Start Programs. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2002, June). Making a difference in the lives of infants and toddlers and their families: The impacts of Early Head Start. Executive summary. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2002, June). Making a difference in the lives of infants and toddlers and their families: The impacts of Early Head Start. Volume I: Final technical report. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2002, June). Making a difference in the lives of infants and toddlers and their families: The impacts of Early Head Start. Volume II: Final technical report appendixes. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2002, June). Making a difference in the lives of infants and toddlers and their families: The impacts of Early Head Start. Volume III: Local contributions to understanding programs and their impacts. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001, June). Building their futures: How Early Head Start programs are enhancing the lives of infants and toddlers in low-income families. Volume I: Technical report. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001, June). Building their futures: How Early Head Start Programs are enhancing the lives of infants and toddlers in low-income families. Volume II: Technical report, appendixes. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2001, June). Building their futures: How Early Head Start programs are enhancing the lives of infants and toddlers in low-income families. Summary report. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999, December). Leading the way: Characteristics and early experience of selected Early Head Start programs. Volume I: Cross-site perspectives. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2000, December). Leading the way: Characteristics and early experience of selected Early Head Start programs. Volume II: Program profiles. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2000, December). Leading the way: Characteristics and early experience of selected Early Head Start programs. Volume III: Program implementation. Washington, DC: Author.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2000, December). Leading the way: Characteristics and early experience of selected Early Head Start programs. Executive summary, Volumes I, II, and III. Washington, DC: Author.
For other papers, please refer to the Early Head Start Collection of Consortium-Written Research Articles and Reports at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/ehs/ehs_resrch/index.html
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