Widely Used Measures of Classroom Quality Are Largely Unrelated to Preschool Skill Development

• In Event: Early Childhood Research: Lessons From a Research-Practice Partnership

Abstract

Early childhood education programs (ECE) invest in assessments of classroom quality to enable accountability and to enact efforts towards quality improvement. The Early Childhood Environment Rating System – Revised (ECERS-R) and Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) are two widely used classroom quality assessments that have inconsistently been linked to longitudinal change in preschoolers’ school-readiness skills. The current study examined associations between specific domains of classroom quality from the ECERS-R and CLASS and growth in children’s literacy, cognitive, social-emotional, and physical skills across multiple cohorts of preschool children. Through a research practice partnership with the early education department of a Bay Area school district, the study was designed through a series of meetings with the district partners who helped in developing the research questions and considering strategies and policies to address the results of the study.

The current study used data from classrooms in a San Francisco Bay Area preschool program primarily serving low-income families: 164 classrooms were observed using the CLASS (N = 2,327) and 131 classrooms were observed using ECERS-R (N = 1,792). The preschool classrooms were a mix of school-based and center-based programs with a maximum ratio of 8:1 for students to teacher. The program is designed around five district-approved approaches: The Reggio Emilia approach, The Project Approach, The Creative Curriculum®, The Montessori Method, and the HighScope Curriculum. Teachers hold at least a Child Development Teacher Permit, which requires early childhood education or related coursework according to the State of California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (2016).

The results confirmed that domains of classroom quality measured by widely used ECERS-R and CLASS assessments largely do not relate to changes in children’s school readiness skills from fall to spring in the preschool year. Our findings corroborate extant literature showing null associations between these observational measures of classroom quality and changes in both teacher-reported and directly-assessed preschool skills (Guerrero-Rosada et al., 2021; Sabol & Pianta, 2014; Weiland et al., 2013). Only the quality of classroom interactions for the ECERS-R – as indexed by positive teacher-child interactions and child-peer interactions, appropriate discipline strategies, and attention to children’s needs and safety – were consistently related to improvement in spring relative to winter across six domains of preschoolers’ teacher-reported skills. Two other ECERS-R domains were weakly associated with social-emotional and written language skills (Activities) and physical development, social-emotional, and verbal language skills (Language-Reasoning).

Overall, the largely null findings underline the importance of examining associations between quality measures and associations with preschool outcomes as they are used and measured in practice. More specifically, the null effects showing that the district’s measures of classroom quality were largely not related to the district’s measures of social and emotional skills catalyzed an enormous effort in the district to overhaul their social and emotional learning curriculum in preschool. As an example of the iterative nature of research practice partnerships, the researchers are supporting the district leaders in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the new curriculum.

Authors

• Meghan McDoniel, Stanford University

• Carrie Townley Flores, Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR)

• Michael Sulik, Stanford University

• Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University