ACF OPRE: Evaluation Data Coordination Project (EDCP)

CHILD CARE QUALITY: STRUCTURAL QUALITY
NATIONAL CHILD CARE STAFFING STUDY

Measure: Child care quality items from the National Child Care Staffing Study director interview that measure classroom structure

Note: The National Child Care Staffing Study (NCCSS) is a longitudinal study of child care centers conducted in 1988, 1992, and 1997. This description of child care quality items comes from the center director interviews completed for the original (1988) study. The items discussed here measure structural quality of child care through the director’s report of the classroom structure of each classroom of the center.

Source

The 1988 NCCSS was coordinated by the Child Care Employee Project staff and funded by a consortium of foundations including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, the Foundation for Child Development, the A.L. Mailman Family Foundation, and the Spunk Fund, Inc. (Whitebook, Howes, & Phillips, 1990, p. ii). Marcy Whitebook, Carollee Howes, and Deborah Phillips, the principal investigators of the NCCSS, worked (at the time of the 1988 study) at the Child Care Employee Project, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of Virginia, respectively. The sponsor of the study, the Child Care Employee Project, changed its name to the Center for the Child Care Workforce (CCW) in 1997. (CCW was known as the National Center for the Early Childhood Work Force between 1994 and 1997.) In November 2002, CCW became a program within the American Federation of Teachers Educational Foundation.

Population Assessed

The original study sample consisted of 227 child care centers in five metropolitan areas; within these 227 centers, researchers observed 643 classrooms and interviewed 1,309 teaching staff (including both teachers and assistant teachers). The NCCSS only focused on center-based programs that served children up through 5 years old, operated at least 11 months a year for a minimum of 6 hours a day, served a minimum of 15 children, and employed no less than six staff members. “In summary, there is some potential for bias in the sample given the higher participation rates for non-profit than for-profit centers, centers serving low-income families, and centers that may offer somewhat higher quality care than is typical in the Study sites [metropolitan areas]. However, as a result of the stratified, replacement sampling strategy, the final sample of centers closely matches the distribution of centers across Census tracts and urban and suburban residential areas” (Whitebook et al., 1990, p. 19).

Because of the decision to focus on five metropolitan areas, the NCCSS did not provide a nationally representative sample of all child care centers, but instead “sought to capture the diversity of the nation’s centers in numbers approximating their distribution in the five Study sites…The participating sites [metropolitan areas], as planned, are highly diverse with respect to their economic contexts, demographics, and regulatory climates” (Whitebook et al., 1990, pp.13, 14).

The five metropolitan areas were ethnically diverse, with a variety of racial/ethnic groups represented. Blacks were the largest minority group in Atlanta and Detroit, Hispanics were the largest in Phoenix, and Asians and Native Americans formed the greatest portion of the minority population in Seattle. About one-third of teaching staff in the 1988 sample belonged to racial/ethnic minorities, and in all metropolitan areas the percentage of members of minority populations was larger in the teaching staff than in the area as a whole. The NCCSS selected centers that served children through five years old, and “across all participating centers, the research team observed 643 classrooms [in 1988]: 85 (13%) infant, 151 (23%) toddler, 313 (49%) preschool, and 94 (15%) mixed-age classrooms” (Whitebook et al., 1990, p. 19). In Atlanta, the sample of 255 children consisted of 36 percent infants, 22 percent toddlers, and 42 percent preschoolers.

Compared with the administrative directors of the centers, teaching staff were younger, more often female, and more often minorities. Only 21 percent of directors, compared with over 50 percent of teaching staff, were under 30 compared; 6 percent of directors, compared with 3 percent of teaching staff, were male; 80 percent of the directors, compared with 68 percent of the teaching staff, were White (Whitebook et al., 1990, p. 34).

Periodicity

Data were collected between February and August 1988 for the original study. The 1992 and 1997 follow-ups also included director interviews.

Subscales/Components

In the center director interview of the 1988 NCCSS, Section D: Classroom Structure provides a director self-report measure of the structural quality of center-based child care. “Directors completed a grid for each room in their centers specifying, in hourly blocks, the number and age of children cared for and the teaching staff in the room. From these grids, we derived measures of staffing patterns including the number of adults in the room, the degree of overlap between teaching shifts, and the use of ‘floaters,’ or teaching staff not assigned to a specific room. We also derived measures of child grouping including whether the room included single-age or mixed-age children, and whether children were grouped and regrouped among classrooms in an accordion fashion throughout the day” (Whitebook et al., 1990, p. 24). Via a separate instrument (unavailable for use in these options documents), structural quality was also measured through observations of the classroom structure of each sampled classroom. This assessment of the child development environment of each center is described more fully on page 25 of Whitebook et al., 1990.

Procedures for Administration

In the 1988 NCCSS, a trained and experienced site coordinator interviewed the center director while on a site visit to each child care center. These one-on-one interviews marked the first step in data collection at each center. Interviews lasted three hours on average. For more information see pages 21–23 of Whitebook et al., 1990.

Psychometrics/Data Quality

“Test-retest reliability (two interviews per director) for [the center director] interview was computed for 10 directors not participating in the Study. Test-retest reliability across all items was r = .82 (range = .79 to .94)” (Whitebook et al., 1990, pp. 21–22).

Similar questions on wages, benefits, and working conditions were asked in both the teaching staff and director interviews of the 1988 NCCSS. Directors consistently gave higher responses to these questions than did teachers. Where answers from both directors and teaching staff were available, analyses done for the NCCSS typically used the responses given by teaching staff for reasons including larger sample size and higher expected reliability (Whitebook et al., 1990, p. 22).

Languages Available

Other than English, information about the languages in which this measure is available is not readily available.

Items Included

Whitebook, M., Howes, C., & Phillips, D. (1988a). National Child Care Staffing Study director interview. Oakland, CA: Child Care Employee Project.

Listed below is the complete content of Section D: Classroom Structure, except that duplicate copies of the table to be filled out are not repeated.

Section D: Classroom Structure

D1. Please complete this form to describe your classroom structure. For each hour of the day and for each group of children, indicate:

The number of children enrolled in the group, and their ages
The staff members assigned to the group (use initials or first names only)
The hours worked by the staff members
The job titles of the staff in parentheses after their first names and last initials:

1.DEFINITIONS: You will need to use the following definitions as you complete this section -

(T) = Teacher refers to persons in charge of a group or classroom of children, often with staff supervisory responsibilities. This category includes head or lead teachers.

(AT) =Assistant Teacher/Aide refers to persons working under the supervision of a teacher.

(TD) = Teacher-Director refers to a person with both teaching and administrative duties.

(AD) = Administrative Director refers to persons who have administrative responsibilities only.

If other category of staff, note job title (e.g., volunteer)

Group of Children		Staffing Pattern
Group Name Example		AM	Number of children enrolled for each hour												PM
		6:00	7:00	8:00	9:00	10:00	11:00	12:00	1:00	2:00	3:00	4:00	5:00	6:00	7:00
			20	22	22	22	22	22	20	20	20	20	20	15
Number	Age	Hours of each staff member 7:00 Irene P. 3:00 8:00 James L. (T) 4:00 9:30 Adele R. (AT) 6:30 2:00 Sue D. (T) 7:00
_________	Infants
___12____	Toddlers (18 mo. - 30 mo.)
___10____	Preschoolers (3-4 years)
_________	Schoolagers

Group of Children		Staffing Pattern
Group Name		AM	Number of children enrolled for each hour												PM
		6:00	7:00	8:00	9:00	10:00	11:00	12:00	1:00	2:00	3:00	4:00	5:00	6:00	7:00

Number	Age	Hours of each staff member
_________	Infants
_________	Toddlers
_________	Preschoolers
_________	Schoolagers

[The above table is repeated 16 times in the director interview booklet.]

References and Source Documents

Whitebook, M., Howes, C., & Phillips, D. (1990). Who cares? Child care teachers and the quality of care in America. Final report: National Child Care Staffing Study. Oakland, CA: Child Care Employee Project.