Examining Quality in Publicly Supported Early Childhood Programs

Instructor(s):

• Margaret Burchinal, FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Martha Zaslow, Child Trends
• Kwang Kim, Westat, Inc.
• Bert Sorongan, Westat, Inc.
• Gail Mulligan, Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies, National Center for Educational Statistics
• Richard Faldowski, Human Development and Family Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This workshop is designed to train researchers to access, analyze, and use datasets to examine quality in early childhood settings, focusing on quality in publicly-funded programs: state prekindergarten, Head Start, Early Head Start.

The workshop will begin with a thorough discussion of the concepts of structural and process quality in early childhood education. It will examine different instruments used to measure quality, including their pros and cons, psychometric properties, and aspects of quality they may not measure. Further, it will expand the discussion of quality to include other variables available in the datasets that can be used to examine structural and process quality. These include more proximal variables like teachers' education and training, class size, high quality provider-child, child-child, and provider-parent interactions.

Datasets to be featured are:

• National Center for Early Development and Learning Multi-State Study of Pre-Kindergarten, 2001-2003 UPDATE
• Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Study (EHSRE) Pre-K Wave
• Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES)
• Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Birth Cohort (ECLS-B)

Participants will learn the studies' purpose, methods, and key findings, as they gain exposure to these data and ways to manipulate them. Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of secondary data, fundamental data analysis skills in SPSS, SAS, or Stata, and a substantive interest in early child care and development.

All researchers interested in quality issues in child care and early education are encouraged to apply.

Admission: all applications much include a vita and cover letter summarizing research interests and experiences.

Stipends: admitted graduate students, post-doctoral scholars and junior faculty/researchers will be considered for one of a limited number of stipends to help with travel and housing costs. To be considered for one of these awards, applicants must also submit a letter of support from a senior faculty member, mentor, or advisor. Supporting materials can be submitted electronically through the Summer Program registration portal on each applicant's Summer Program page.

Deadline: Applications are due on Friday May 15, 2009

Dates:  July 13-16 

Fee:  There will be no tuition fees for accepted participants.

This course is limited to 20 participants.