Can a Brief Professional Development Improve Early Childhood Educators’ Responsivity and Interaction Quality in Child Care Centers? A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

ABSTRACT

High-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) – particularly care defined by highly responsive interactions between educators and children – has the potential to have lasting positive impacts on children’s development. While there is variability in the level of quality among early education and care settings, professional development for early childhood educators has been shown to be an effective means to improve both ECEC quality and child outcomes. As many professional development programs are time and resource intensive, we sought out to test the efficacy of a brief (5 hr) professional development program that included a workshop, individual coaching, video feedback and text messaging. Research Findings: Results of a cluster randomized controlled trial with 93 educators indicated that the program improved educators’ responsivity three-months after intervention (d = 0.60, p = .035), but not classroom-wide levels of emotional support or instructional quality. Trend analysis revealed the greatest improvements occurred after the workshop and first coaching session and leveled off over time. Practice or Policy: Preliminary evidence suggests brief professional development programs may improve interaction quality with effect sizes comparable to those of longer programs. Well-powered studies using multiple arms or sequential randomization will help optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of professional development.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada under Grant 890-2015-2031. It was conducted in partnership with George Brown College and the City of Toronto. Thank you to Sharon Pauker, Gabriella Nocita, Nellie Kamkar, Justine Biado, Alessandro Eid-Ricci, Shailja Jain and Samantha Burns for their support with the organization and implementation of this project. Finally, we are deeply grateful for the child care center directors and staff who participated in this study.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MP, upon reasonable request.