An observational assessment of parent–teacher cocaring relationships in infant–toddler classrooms

ABSTRACT

Cocaring encompasses how parents and teachers work together to coordinate caregiving. Two critical components of cocaring have demonstrated importance for child and parent well-being: support and undermining. Although parent–teacher relationships have been studied via qualitative interviews and through self-administered questionnaires, little observational research has been conducted. This study sought to develop an observational approach to measure the quality of cocaring relationships by recording and coding parent–teacher interactions. Eighteen mother–teacher dyads of 6- to 36-month-old children from six childcare centers were video recorded during morning drop-off and evening pick-up times. Fifty-eight videos were coded for eight dimensions of cocaring quality, representing observed support and undermining. Results indicated strong inter-rater reliability and associations amongst the individual dimensions consistent with theory, thus supporting initial construct validity. This study offers a new observational tool to assess cocaring relationships and provides practical information about the kinds of behaviors that convey support and undermining in everyday interactions.

KEYWORDS:

• cocaring relationships
• parent–teacher interactions
• infant–toddler care
• center-based childcare
• observational tools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The epistemological framework of the CBCM is positivist in nature; it assumes that with carefully defined scales an external observer, given enough time and an appropriate context, can make an objective assessment of the quality of the interactions they observe and assign a number to quantify the level of each dimension displayed.