Increasing the Capacity of Early Childhood Education Programs to Use Data to Improve Implementation and Evaluation

In Study 1, the project team examined the impacts of providing teachers with information on students' social-emotional skills. All teachers completed a social-emotional assessment (Devereux Early Childhood Assessment for Preschoolers: DECA-P2) for each of their students about 4 weeks into the school year. The team randomly assigned coaches (and the teachers they work with) to either a treatment group that received the DECA-P2 data and suggestions for organizing and instructing students with similar scores, or a control group that received the DECA-P2 but did not receive suggestions. Teachers completed the DECA-P2 for each student again in May. In addition, another teacher or coach administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) to all students at both the beginning and end of year. The partnership surveyed teachers and coaches as to their use of instructional differentiation and, for the treatment group, use of the DECA-P2 in determining differentiation. The team used analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) models to estimate the impact of the feedback about students' social-emotional skills on teachers' differentiation of instruction and hierarchical linear models to estimate the impact of the feedback on the student outcomes (DECA-P2 and PPVT).

In Study 2, the project team used a 4-group comparison design to explore the promise of an enhanced coaching model. The Study 1 treatment and control groups were broken into two groups apiece. From the Study 1 treatment group, two of the top performing treatment coaches implemented an enhanced coaching model with about 26 teachers. The model included the social-emotional feedback used in Study 1 plus new supports for the specific curricula being used in pre-k (Opening the World of Learning and Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children). The other treatment coaches from Study 1 continued providing the previous support and their teachers continued to receive the same feedback. The Study 1 comparison group were broken into two groups with one receiving the social-emotional feedback and the other not receiving it.

The team used classroom observation to measure implementation of the two curricula. Researchers used DECA-2 and PPVT to measure student outcomes. Analyses were carried out using hierarchical linear models to estimate the relationship of the enhanced coaching model on teacher implementation of the curricula and on the student outcomes.