Conception and validation of the Quality of Educators’ Observation and Planning Practices Scale (QEOPPS)

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to present the conception and validation of the Quality of Educators’ Observation and Planning Practices Scale (QEOPPS). The instrument assesses the quality of early childhood educators’ observation practices (observing children, collecting information, using the collected information, paying attention to each child) and planning practices (planning regularly, tailoring planning to each child, implementing it with flexibility, planning based on a curriculum). This study was conducted with 181 educators working in early childhood education and care centres with 3- to 5-year-olds. Based on educators’ responses in a semi-structured interview and on verification of relevant documents, an observer scored the QEOPPS. The results indicate that the QEOPPS shows good inter-rater reliability and internal consistency, and also provide evidence for construct and concurrent validity. The discussion highlights the implication of the QEOPPS as a promising scale for use in research and as support for initial and ongoing training for practice.

Keywords:

• Early childhood education
• early childhood education and care centre quality
• educator’s observation and planning practices
• quality rating scale
• reliability and validity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministère de la Famille du Québec and the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the Ministère de la Famille du Québec and the Université du Québec à Montréal for contributing financially to this study. Additionally, our warmest gratitude goes to the childcare educators who invested their valuable time by participating in the study, as well as to the research professionals and assistants who gathered the data. We would like to thank our valuable colleagues, Paul Hayotte and members of the Qualité des contextes éducatifs de la petite enfance [Quality of early childhood education] research team, who provided helpful feedback on a previous version of this manuscript.