Helping the Helpers: Early Educators’ Use of and Preferences for Professional Development Supports

• In Event: Leveraging Developmental Insights to Address the Cross-Sector Consequences of COVID-19 for Early Educators

Abstract

Educators are the most important ingredient for promoting children’s healthy development in early education and care (EEC) programs (Hanno et al., 2021; Markowitz et al., 2018). To best attend to the needs of young children, early educators require and deserve access to professional opportunities that help grow their preexisting skills and knowledge, as well as help them develop new abilities. EEC programs, which often have limited resources, spend a considerable portion of their funds on professional development (PD); yet we know very little about what early educators’ PD preferences are, what types of PD they actually receive, and whether these opportunities align with the science of what is most impactful (e.g., Egert et al., 2018; Kraft et al., 2018). In the present study, we draw on data collected in partnership with early educators across one community in Massachusetts to understand early educators’ experiences with and desires for PD. We hypothesized that there likely exist disconnects between what educators want and what they receive in terms of PD.

Analyses for this study use data collected in partnership with the Office of Early Childhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts – a city of 117,000 inhabitants with a mixed delivery landscape of early childhood programs. In early 2022, we worked with city officials, as well as a small subset of administrators and educators to design an online survey for all professionals working with children between birth and five in a group-based program in the city (e.g., Head Start, family child care, public school prekindergarten). Based on practitioner feedback, we included an extensive number of questions probing early educators’ experiences with and desires for professional development. We also embedded a conjoint survey experiment – a method drawn primarily from marketing research – to unpack educators’ preferences for different aspects of PD (e.g., type, timing, location). The survey experiment presented educators with two randomly-generated PD options and asked them to select their preferred option. This design allows us to isolate the probability an educator would want to take advantage of a PD program with a specific feature.

We received responses from 214 educators representing 70 of the city’s 114 group-based programs (61%) between May and July 2022. As illustrated in Table 1, educators in the sample were predominantly female (94%), White (78%), and English-speaking (90%). Preliminary analyses of early educators’ responses to a question asking about topics covered in PD since September 2021 indicated most educators had received supports focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (63%), behavior management (55%), and social and emotional learning (54%) (Table 2). Contrary to our hypothesis, these three topic areas were also among educators most desired topics. The final presentation will include full results from the conjoint survey experiment.

Although the field largely recognizes professional development as the primary way to support early educators in their essential work with young children, rarely does it listen to early educators about how their professional desires. This study highlights the power of community-based partnership research to inform PD efforts and ultimately ensure they align to what early educators need and want.

Authors

• Emily Hanno, MDRC (Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation) - New York City

• Jacqueline Ramos-Draper, Harvard University
  Presenting Author

• Alan Mozaffari, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Charlotte Petty, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Stephanie M Jones, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Nonie Lesaux, Harvard Graduate School of Education