Associations between Directors’ Characteristics, Supervision Practices and Quality of Early Childhood Education and Care Classrooms

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: We investigated associations between the characteristics of directors, their practices in supervising educators, and the quality of classrooms in their centers. Directors from 71 randomly selected child care centers (106 classrooms) serving preschool-age children in Toronto, Canada, completed a questionnaire asking about their characteristics (e.g., education/experience) and supervision practices. Quality was assessed using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) and a short version of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R). Most directors were female and had a strong early childhood education background. Their characteristics showed no, or negative, associations with supervision practices. Variance decomposition analysis revealed significant center level variance for the Emotional Support and Classroom Organization subscales of the CLASS and for the ECERS-R score. Experience in the current center, in the early childhood sector and administrative experience were negatively related to ECERS-R scores. No associations were observed with the CLASS. Practice and Policy: While our findings show center level effects for quality, they highlight the need for further research on whether and how directors drive center quality.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant from Children’s Services at the City of Toronto to the first and last authors. The second author was supported by the Concordia University Research Chair in Early Childhood Development and Education. We thank all the participants who were so generous with their time and made this research possible. We also thank Catherine Bergeron and Nadina Mahadeo for their research assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.