Exploring Teacher/Leader Experiences With the Pre-K Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) as a Part of the Head Start Designation Renewal System

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early-Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

This paper uses data from a mixed-methods study in a Head Start program in a large, urban, Midwestern school district, to examine the experiences of a group of Head Start teachers and program leaders navigating this high-stakes environment. The participants engaged with a professional development (PD) intervention aimed at improving their Pre-K CLASS scores, which had failed to meet the minimum scores set by HS-DRS. To do this, I ask: How did a group of Head Start leaders and teachers experience the role of the Pre-K CLASS in their efforts to improve classroom quality in the high stakes context of HS-DRS? In what ways do these teachers’ and leaders’ experiences reflect and/or diverge from Mashburn’s methodological concerns relating to the validity of using the Pre-K CLASS for high stakes accountability?

Context. The study began in November 2015, when I was asked by a Head Start program director to find a low-cost way to improve teachers’ Pre-K CLASS scores because she was concerned that they might lose funding under what she described as “new federal requirements” (later identified as HS-DRS) if they did not do so. What emerged from this initial contact was a two year research-practice partnership and a mixed-methods design-study and PD intervention to improve the programs’ overall CLASS scores to meet HS-DRS criteria. This paper utilizes a subset of qualitative data from the first year of the study and explores the participating teachers’ (N=6) and leaders’ (N=2) experiences with the Pre-K CLASS.

Methods. The qualitative piece of this mixed-methods study utilized an interpretive, case study method (Stake, 19951). In Year 1, I gathered multiple sources of qualitative data: detailed classroom observations (8 in each classroom) over 4 months using observational field notes (Clifford, 1990; Emerson, Fretz & Shaw, 2011) to capture classroom practices; transcriptions of audio-recordings of PD sessions with each teacher (4 in each classroom); documents from the PD; a pre and post-PD interview with each teacher designed to understand their experiences with the PD and the larger context of the high stakes nature of the Pre-K CLASS observations (n=12); a pre and post-PD interview with the two program leaders (n=4); and design and implementation-related emails from communication with program leaders (n=27). All qualitative data were analyzed in NVIVO10 (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013) using an emergent coding structure, populated from themes identified during coding of the data set (Charmaz, 2006). Three rounds of coding of all data were completed before final findings were identified. Triangulation of the multiple data sources provided an opportunity to question key assumptions and seek out disconfirming evidence (Stake, 1995).

Author

• Katherine Kresin Delaney, University of Toledo