Experimental Impacts of the “Quality Preschool for Ghana” Interventions on Teacher Professional Well-being, Classroom Quality, and Children’s School Readiness

Figures & data

Figure 1. Quality preschool for Ghana theory of change. Note. Solid lines represent causal relations. Dashed lines represent noncausal relations. Only solid lines are examined in this study.

Figure 2. Research design. Note. The six districts in the Greater Accra Region include: Ga South, Adenta, Ledzokuku-Krowor, Ga Central, La Nkwantanang-Madina, and Ga West. School randomization is stratified by district and public- versus private-sector status.

Table 1. Means and mean differences in teacher and child characteristics at baseline, by treatment condition.

	Control	TT	TTPA	F statistic	p value
School characteristics	Mean or %
Private school status	55.7%	56.1%	53.2%	0.08	.923
No. of years school has been established	23	23	19	0.95	.389
School has written rules/regulations for staff	38.5%	48.8%	35.9%	1.52	.222
Total number of KG children in school	54	63	60	0.64	.529
Total number of KG teachers on the payroll	2.0	2.3	2.2	0.98	.376
Main language of instruction in KG1
English only	10.5%	13.5%	7.5%	0.68	.509
Mother tongue only	4.5%	1.4%	1.5%	0.90	.407
Mixture of English and mother tongue	85.1%	85.1%	91.0%	0.70	.496
Sample size (total =240)	79	82	79
Teacher characteristics
Female	97.9%	97.4%	97.3%	0.05	.953
Age	35.3	35.7	35.2	0.07	.933
Years as a teacher	6.55	6.16	6.64	0.22	.801
Years as a teacher in current school	3.37	3.47	3.21	0.17	.842
At least secondary high school (%)	97.1%	93.5%	91.3%	2.18	.114
Has any post-secondary training	60.0%	62.3%	58.7%	0.22	.804
Has training in ECD	65.7%	72.1%	64.0%	1.25	.288
Motivation	4.66	4.75	4.64	1.83	.162
Burnout	2.05	2.03	2.12	0.78	.459
Job satisfaction	3.05	3.12	3.08	0.285	.755
Sample size (total =444)	143	153	148
Child characteristics
Female	50.0%	48.5%	49.0%	0.27	.764
Age	5.25	5.17	5.25	1.02	.361
KG1 (vs. KG2)	53.5%	52.1%	52.6%	0.24	.789
School readiness composite (% correct)	50.9	51.8	52.2	1.66	.190
Early literacy	43.6	44.6	46.0	3.80	.023
Early numeracy	38.8	39	40.0	1.54	.214
Social-emotional	36.3	37.2	38.4	3.61	.027
Executive function	46.4	45.9	46.3	0.21	.814
Sample size (total =3435)	1,088	1,180	1,167

Note. TT = Teacher training condition; TTPA = Teacher training plus parental awareness condition; KG = Kindergarten; ECD = Early childhood development.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations of outcome variables at follow-up.

	Mean	SD	Range	1	2	3	4	5	6
1 Child school readiness composite	0.565	0.178	0–1
Teacher professional well-being
2 Teacher motivation	4.71	0.44	1–5	0.035
3 Teacher burnout	2.01	0.90	1–6	−0.040	−0.174
4 Teacher job satisfaction	3.08	0.68	1–4	−0.017	0.130	−0.284
Observed classroom quality
5 Facilitating deeper learning	2.39	0.65	1–4	0.042	−0.076	−0.051	0.031
6 Emotional support and behavior management	3.07	0.37	1–4	0.104	−0.052	−0.080	0.063	0.304
7 Supporting student expression	1.75	0.67	1–4	−0.035	−0.052	0.014	0.000	0.360	0.157

Notes. Bold numbers indicate that correlation is statistically significant at p < .05. Correlations with school readiness use child-level data (N = 3435); correlations among teacher variables include teacher-level data (N = 444).

Table 3. Variance partition for teacher/classroom and child outcomes at follow-up.

	Proportion of variance
	Child	Teacher/classroom	School
Teacher professional well-being
Motivation	–	0.874	0.126
Burnout	–	0.883	0.117
Job satisfaction	–	0.731	0.269
Classroom quality
Facilitating deeper learning	–	0.778	0.222
Emotional support and behavior management	–	0.867	0.133
Supporting student expression	–	0.852	0.148
Child outcomes
School readiness composite	0.581	0.419	0.000
Early numeracy	0.622	0.378	0.000
Early literacy	0.543	0.371	0.086
Social-emotional	0.826	0.141	0.034
Executive function	0.765	0.199	0.037

Table 4. Impacts on teacher professional well-being and classroom quality.

	b	(SE)	p value	dwt or OR
Teacher professional well-being
Motivation
TT	0.103	(0.068)	.132	0.345
TTPA	0.033	(0.072)	.648	0.111
Burnout
TT	−0.330	(0.155)	.035*	−0.398
TTPA	−0.492	(0.159)	.002**	−0.593
Job satisfaction
TT	0.130	(0.096)	.175	0.328
TTPA	0.043	(0.100)	.663	0.108
Teacher turnover^a
TT	−0.868	(0.414)	.036*	0.420^b
TTPA	−0.629	(0.351)	.073^+	0.533^b
Classroom outcomes
Fidelity checklist (no. of activities)
TT	1.310	(0.246)	.000***	0.560
TTPA	1.434	(0.266)	.000***	0.613
Facilitating deeper learning
TT	−0.045	(0.106)	.672	−0.113
TTPA	−0.063	(0.116)	.588	−0.158
Emotional support and behavior management
TT	0.170	(0.065)	.010**	0.647
TTPA	0.172	(0.066)	.010**	0.655
Supporting student expression
TT	0.235	(0.110)	.033*	0.524
TTPA	0.042	(0.116)	.719	0.094

Note. TT = teacher training condition; TTPA = teacher training plus parent-awareness meetings condition.

Estimates are computed using observed scores, in two-level models: teachers nested in schools. Effect sizes are calculated accounting for the two-level model structure (Hedges, 2009).

Sample size for TT vs. control =296 teachers nested in 161 schools. Sample size for TTPA vs. control =291 teachers nested in 158 schools. All impact estimates computed from 20 multiply imputed data sets. Models include the following control variables: private- (vs. public-) sector status of the school, six district dummies, a dummy variable for whether the school was assigned to receive teacher text messages, a dummy for whether the school was assigned to receive parent flyers, and a series of five dummy variables accounting for within-sample mobility, teacher gender, age, level of education, and years of teaching experience. Models for teacher professional well-being outcomes also include the baseline score for each respective outcome.

+ p < .10.

* p < .05.

** p < .01.

*** p < .001.

^a Model estimated with multinomial logistic regression.

^b Odds ratio presented.

Table 5. Impacts on children’s school readiness outcomes.

	b	(SE)	p value	dwt
School readiness composite
TT	0.025	(0.010)	.010**	0.163
TTPA	0.004	(0.010)	.691	0.026
Post-hoc estimates by domain
Early numeracy
TT	0.020	(0.009)	.031*	0.107
TTPA	−0.005	(0.010)	.609	−0.027
Early literacy
TT	0.022	(0.011)	.045*	0.110
TTPA	−0.006	(0.013)	.670	−0.030
Social-emotional
TT	0.035	(0.013)	.010**	0.180
TTPA	0.014	(0.013)	.286	0.128
Executive function
TT	0.020	(0.014)	.148	0.109
TTPA	0.007	(0.014)	.589	0.038

Note. TT = teacher training condition; TTPA = teacher training plus parent-awareness training condition.

Estimates are computed using observed scores, in three-level models: children nested in classrooms nested in schools. Effect sizes calculated accounting for the three-level model structure (Hedges, 2009).

Sample size for TT vs. control =2,268 children nested in 296 teachers nested in 161 schools. Sample size for TTPA vs. control =2,255 children nested in 291 teachers nested in 158 schools. All impact estimates computed from 100 multiply imputed data sets. Models include the following control variables: private- (vs. public-) sector status of the school, six district dummies, a dummy variable for whether the school was assigned to receive teacher text messages, a dummy for whether the school was assigned to receive parent flyers, a series of five dummy variables accounting for within-sample mobility, child gender, age, KG level (1, 2, or 3 if KG1 and KG2 were combined in one classroom, as a categorical variable), and baseline score for each respective outcome.

* p < . 05. + p < .10.

Figure 3. Predicted probability of teacher turnover by treatment status for public and private schools.

Hedges, L. V. (2009). Effect sizes in nested designs. In H. Cooper, L. V. Hedges, & J. C. Valentine (Eds.), The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-analysis (pp. 337–356). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

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