Co-Principal Investigators: Le, Vi-Nhuan; Setodji, Claude Messan

Purpose: This study will examine the relationships between the teachers' coursework content, instructional quality, and children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional outcomes. There is a lack of consensus in the field of early childhood education about the knowledge, competencies, and qualifications that early childhood teachers need to be effective. There are mixed findings in the research literature regarding associations between teacher education, classroom quality, and children's school readiness skills. The research to date has primarily focused on the quantity of teachers' formal education and has not attended to the content of teachers' postsecondary coursework. The researchers will provide empirical evidence about associations between teacher coursework content, instructional quality, and child outcomes by conducting a content analysis of preschool teachers' postsecondary coursework using college transcripts. The study findings may help guide teacher credentialing systems and Quality Rating and Improvement Systems by identifying the types of coursework that drive better teaching and learning outcomes that should be included within these systems. This study also has the potential to inform the course offerings in teacher preparation programs.

Project Activities: The researchers will collect data from two cohorts of study participants. They will recruit 120 preschool teachers and 1200 children to participate in the study. They will obtain and code teachers' college transcripts for coursework content across different knowledge domains.The team will assess children, conduct classroom observations, and collect survey data from teachers, parents, and center directors. Researchers will conduct data analyses and disseminate the findings to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Products: Researchers will produce evidence of associations between teacher coursework content, instructional quality and child outcomes.They will produce peer-reviewed publications, a research brief, and disseminate the findings to early childhood policymakers in written summaries and presentations.

Structured Abstract

Setting: This study will take place in a range of community-based preschool programs (Head Start, subsidized child care and private/no public funding) in urban, suburban, and rural areas of Colorado.

Sample: The sample will include approximately 1200 preschool children and 120 preschool teachers.

Malleable Factors: The malleable factors are coursework content and instructional quality. Researchers will examine the comprehensiveness of coursework (as defined by whether the coursework covers a range of teacher knowledge domains) as well as depth of coursework (as defined by the number of courses taken in each teacher knowledge domain).

Research Design and Methods: This project involves two cohorts of study participants and two rounds of data collection. In year 1 of the project, researchers will develop a sampling frame, develop study materials, train data collectors, refine the coursework classification system, and recruit the first cohort of study participants (n= 60 teachers and centers and 600 children). Year 2/Cohort 1 activities include data collection, coding transcripts, and recruiting the second cohort (n=60 teachers and centers and 600 children). Year 3/Cohort 2 will involve data collection and coding transcripts. In years 2 and 3, data collectors will visit classrooms three times during each school year to collect child assessment data (fall and spring) and conduct classroom observations (winter). In fall of years 2 and 3, parents, teachers, and center directors will complete electronic surveys to provide background information. In year 4, researchers will analyze data to address the primary research questions and disseminate the study findings.

Control Condition: Due to the exploratory nature of the research design, there is no control condition.

Key Measures: To assess teacher education, researchers will collect college transcripts from every postsecondary institution that teachers attended. Using the preschool teacher knowledge domains outlined by the Transforming the Early Childhood Workforce Birth to Age EightReport (IOM/NRC, 2015), they will classify teachers' coursework into categories based on the type of professional knowledge the course is primarily designed to foster. Classroom observation measures include the Classroom Assessment and Scoring System, the Preschool Rating of Instruction in Science and Mathematics, and the Early Language and Literacy Classroom Observation. Child outcome measures include the Devereaux Early Childhood Assessment, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Student Achievement, and the Lens on Science / Enfoque en Ciencia direct assessment.

Data Analytic Strategy: To explore relationships among coursework content, instructional quality and child outcomes, researchers will use regression models that control for several child/family, teacher, classroom, program, and higher education factors. They will conduct sensitivity analysis that examine relationships between coursework content and teaching and learning outcomes for novice teachers and for children of diverse cultural and language backgrounds.