Measuring preschool quality in low- and middle-income countries: Validity of the ECERS-R in Colombia
Section snippets
Quality of early childhood education
A large number of studies shows that early childhood interventions can be cost-effective in reducing inequities and improving academic achievement (Heckman, 2011). Preschool programs, in particular, promote development in early childhood (Almond, Currie, & Duque, 2018; Heckman & Mosso, 2014; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Results from experimental and quasi-experimental studies document the benefits of high-quality preschool programs (Black et al., 2017; Britto et al., 2017; Campbell & Ramey, 1994;
Using the ECERS-R to assess Early Education Quality
ECERS-R is one of the most commonly used instruments around the globe for assessing preschool quality. It is an observational measure that consists of 43 items to measure quality across seven dimensions: 1. space and furnishing, 2. personal care routines, 3. language and reasoning, 4. activities, 5. interaction, 6. program structure, and 7. parents and staff. Noteworthy, although most of the items assess availability of material resources (e.g. books, toys), they do not include some important
Preschool in Colombia
While for most of the period since the late 1980s access to public early education programs ranged from 20% to 40% for low income children in Colombia (Bernal & Camacho, 2011), this figure radically increased in recent years after the government launched the national early childhood strategy De Cero a Siempre (DCAS, From Zero to Forever) in 2011 (Bernal & Ramírez, 2019). This initiative was aimed at increasing access and quality of early childhood education offered to socio-economically
The present study
The goal of this study is to strengthen the knowledge about the psychometric properties of the ECERS-R in LAMI countries by considering how it performs in two studies in Colombia. Specifically, this study had two aims. First, we tested the structural validity of the ECERS-R in Colombia. Second, we examined whether the ECERS-R items could be arranged in a different factor structure with good predictive qualities. To achieve this second aim, we used theoretical and statistical criteria to develop
Sample
The present study included 147 preschool classrooms in Colombia from which 668 children were selected. The ECERS-R was used to assess preschool classroom quality in two studies. The first is the Early Education Quality in Bogota (EEQB) study (Maldonado-Carreño & Votruba-Drzal, 2014), which was conducted in Bogota, the capital of Colombia. The second is the Impact Evaluation of Child Development Centers (IACDC) study (Bernal et al., 2019), which was conducted in 14 medium-to-large cities across
Structural validity of the ECERS-R
Descriptive statistics for the ECERS-R items are shown in Table 2. The mean scores on each item were generally low, ranging from 1 to 2. This indicates that quality was “inadequate” according to ECERS-R standards. Although generally all items had low scores, it is important to highlight that items related with Interactions and Parents and staff had higher scores than the other items on the instrument.
The first goal of this study was to test whether the original ECERS-R structure of seven
Discussion
To our knowledge, this is the first study in Latin America to analyze the structural and predictive validity of the ECERS-R, although it has been previously used for program evaluation across the region (Aparicio, Wieler, & Elías, 2011; Araujo, López-Boo, Novella, Schodt, & Tomé, 2015; Kagan, 2011). First, this study considered whether the original structure of the ECERS-R was reproduced in the sample, finding no evidence of the seven-dimension in the Colombian context. Second, it examined
Limitations
It is important to note several limitations to this study. First, although our sample allowed for reasonable precision, our estimates would have been more precise with a larger sample. Additionally, both samples include direct assessments of only a few children from each classroom, and it is impossible to know how well these represent the experiences of other children in the classroom. Moreover, both of the studies included in this analysis are comprised of settings serving low-income families,
Conclusion
The findings of this study support the increasing attention that scholars and policymakers are giving to assess, adapt, and develop measures of preschool quality for global contexts (Anderson and Sayre, 2016, Unicef, 2019). Our results suggest that quality measurement needs to be broadened to conceptualize quality in high-poverty contexts. Developing measures that are responsive to the policies of LAMI countries and their material resource availability is vital to making informed decisions that
Credit author statement
Laura Betancur: Conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing – original draft preparation
Carolina Maldonado-Carreño: Provision of study materials, methodology, validation, writing – reviewing and editing
Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal: Conceptualization, methodology, supervision, writing – reviewing and editing
Raquel Bernal: Provision of study materials, methodology, writing – reviewing and editing
References (98)
Evaluation of an early childhood preschool program in rural Bangladesh
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2006)- et al.
The effect of the external regulator's absence on children's speech use, manifested self-regulation, and task performance during learning tasks
Computers in Human Behavior
(2011) - et al.
The effects of the transition from home-based childcare to childcare centers on children’s health and development in Colombia
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2019) - et al.
Improving the quality of early childhood care at scale: the effects of “From Zero to Forever”
World Development
(2019) - et al.
Household chaos and children's cognitive and socio-emotional development in early childhood: Does childcare play a buffering role?
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2016) - et al.
Advancing early childhood development: From science to scale. Early childhood development coming of age: Science through the life course
The Lancet
(2017) - et al.
Nurturing care: Promoting early childhood development
The Lancet
(2017) - et al.
Effects of variation in teacher organization on classroom functioning
Journal of School Psychology
(2005) - et al.
Effects of classroom organization on letter–word reading in first grade
Journal of School Psychology
(2008) - et al.
Measurement of quality in preschool child care classrooms: An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2005)
Factor structure and validity of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale – Third Edition (ECERS-3)
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Assessing child-care quality with a telephone interview
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Quarterly Chinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (trial) (CECERS): A validity study
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Effects of the Tennessee Prekindergarten Program on children's achievement and behavior through third grade
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Effects of a preschool intervention on cognitive development among East-African preschool children: A flexibly time-coded growth model
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Examining the validity of the ECERS-R: Results from the German national study of child care in early childhood
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Examining the psychometric properties of the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R)
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
The prediction of process quality from structural features of child care
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
A cross-cultural study of preschool quality in South Korea and Sweden: ECERS evaluations
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Preliminary construct and concurrent validity of the Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA) for field-based research
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Identification of social-emotional problems in young children using a parent-completed screening measure
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Measuring and predicting process quality in Ghanaian pre-primary classrooms using the Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System (TIPPS)
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
Childhood circumstances and adult outcomes: Act II
Journal of Economic Literature
Measuring early learning quality and outcomes in Tanzania
Preschool quality and child development
Resultados de la evaluación de efectividad del preescolar 2005
Daycare services: It’s all about quality
La calidad de los Centros Infantiles del Buen Vivir en Ecuador
Resumen de Políticas, IDB-PB-248
Two measures of the quality of group care for infants and toddlers
European Journal of the Psychology of Education
The importance of early childhood programs in Colombia
Early Childhood Policy in the Context of Equity and Social Mobility in Colombia
Evaluación de impacto del Programa Hogares Comunitarios de Bienestar del ICBF
Documento CEDE
A meta-analysis of class sizes and ratios in early childhood education programs: Are thresholds of quality associated with greater impacts on cognitive, achievement, and socioemotional outcomes?
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Quality of early childhood development programs in global contexts. Rationale for investment, conceptual framework and implications for equity
SRCD Social Policy Report
Assessing quality of kindergarten classrooms in Singapore: Psychometric properties of the early childhood environment rating scale—revised
International Journal of Early Childhood
Differentiating among measures of quality: Key characteristics and their coverage in existing measures
Measuring early care and education quality
Child Development Perspectives
Quality rating and improvement systems: Secondary data analyses of psychometric properties of scale development
How well do our measures of quality predict child outcomes? A meta-analysis and coordinated analysis of data from large-scale studies of early childhood settings
Effects of early intervention on intellectual and academic achievement: A follow-up study of children from low-income families
Child Development
Early childhood education quality: A Brazilian study in six capitals
Cadernos de Pesquisa
Estrategia de atención integral a la primera infancia. Fundamentos políticos, técnicos y de gestión
What is pre-kindergarten? Characteristics of public pre-kindergarten programs
Applied Developmental Science
School quality and the long-term effects of head start
Journal of Human Resources
De Cero a Siempre. Informe de resultados de la evaluacion y tercera entrega de la documentacion de la base de datos de la evaluacion
Child development in developing countries: Strategies to avoid the loss of development potential in more than 200 million children in the developing world
Lancet
An analysis of the conceptualisation of “quality” in early childhood education and care empirical research: Promoting “blind spots” as foci for future research
Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research
Psychological Methods
Examining early child development in low-income countries
Cited by (13)
Classroom chaos and program quality in early child care and education programs: A study from Turkey
2023, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyFamily engagement in early learning opportunities at home and in early childhood education centers in Colombia
2022, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyCitation Excerpt :ICBF, 2020a). Regarding pedagogical quality in ECCE centers, on average, centers had a score of 2.3 on a scale of 1–4, indicating medium to low levels of quality that are consistent with previous assessments of process quality in smaller samples in Colombia using other tools such as the ECERS-R (Betancur et al., 2021). What are levels of home- and center-based family engagement in children's early learning opportunities in a national sample of public ECCE in Colombia?
Implementation and quality of an early childhood education program for newly arrived refugee children in Germany: an observational study
2023, International Journal of Child Care and Education PolicyDefining early education quality using CLASS-observed teacher-student interaction
2023, Frontiers in PsychologyPaths 2 play: teacher’s play facilitation in Colombia
2023, Frontiers in EducationState vs. private preschool setting: assessing school quality for a successful learning environment
2023, International Journal of Early Years Education