Quality of toddler childcare – Can it be assessed with questionnaires?

ABSTRACT

Although observational instruments are considered to be the gold standard for measuring toddler childcare quality, large-scale studies often have to rely on interviews or questionnaires. However, it remains unclear whether such reports can serve as reliable indicators for childcare quality. The present study used the ITERS and FCCERS to examine how far staff-reported and observed quality coincide in 65 centre-based and 47 family-based childcare facilities; moreover, data on 414 two-year-olds were taken from the German National Educational Panel Study to determine whether reported childcare quality predicts children’s developmental status at the age of two years. Results indicated that up to 43% of the variance in toddler childcare quality could be explained by staff-reported quality via questionnaires. But with cross-sectional analysis, children’s developmental status could not be explained sufficiently by reported quality. Results and implications for future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Toddler childcare quality
• measurement
• observation
• questionnaire

Acknowledgements

This paper uses data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS): Starting Cohort Newborns, doi:10.5157/NEPS:SC1:3.0.0. From 2008 to 2013, NEPS data were collected as part of the Framework Programme for the Promotion of Empirical Educational Research funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). As of 2014, NEPS is carried out by the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) at the University of Bamberg in cooperation with a nationwide network.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Anja Linberg is a research assistant at the University of Bamberg’s Chair of Early Childhood Education where she is working in the DFG supported ViVA Project (DFG Priority Programme 1646 – Education as a Lifelong Process).

Katharina Kluczniok is a senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Bamberg’s Chair for Early Childhood Education.

Lars Burghardt is a research assistant at the University of Bamberg’s Chair of Early Childhood Education.

Jan-David Freund is a research assistant at the University of Bamberg’s Chair of Developmental Psychology where he is working in the DFG supported ViVA Project (DFG Priority Programme 1646 – Education as a Lifelong Process).

ORCID

Anja Linberg http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1838-5311

Katharina Kluczniok http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5809-9726

Lars Burghardt http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9308-8563

Jan-David Freund http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5402-5874

Notes

1 This result is also true, if processual characteristics are included in the model first.

2 Results of this separate analysis can be requested from the first author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under Grant RO 820/14-2/AOBJ: 615658.