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Parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of quality in Portuguese childcare classrooms

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Abstract

The main goal of this study was to examine parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of quality in early childhood education for toddlers in Portugal. A total of 110 parents and 110 teachers participated in the study, rating the importance of specific quality criteria and assessing childcare classrooms, based on the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale Parent Questionnaire (ITERS-RPQ) and on the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale Teacher Questionnaire (ITERS-RTQ), respectively. The same quality items were used by external observers to evaluate the same classrooms with the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-R; Harms et al. 2003). Results suggest that parents and teachers give high importance scores to the quality criteria included in the ITERS-R, substantiating the use of this instrument in Portugal. Although correlations were found between observers’ and parents’ ratings of quality, and between observers’ and teachers’ ratings of quality, results suggest that teachers and parents consider education and care in toddler classrooms to be substantially more adequate than the researchers observed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Centro de Investigação e Inovação em Educação; Centro de Psicologia da Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 602, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal

    Sílvia Barros

  2. Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade do Porto, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200-135, Porto, Portugal

    Teresa B. Leal

Authors
  1. Sílvia Barros
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  2. Teresa B. Leal
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sílvia Barros.

Additional information

Sílvia Barros. Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Centro de Investigação e Inovação em Educação; Centro de Psicologia da Universidade do Porto. Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 602, 4200–465 Porto, Portugal. E-mail: silviabarros@ese.ipp.pt; Website: www.ese.ipp.pt

Current themes of research:

Quality in childcare and preschool education. Teacher-child interactions. Child engagement in early childhood education. Infants’ transition to childcare. Family-school relationships.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Barros, S., & Aguiar, C. (2010). Assessing the quality of Portuguese child care programs for toddlers. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 25, 527–535. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2009.12.003 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2009.12.003#_blank

Barros, S., & Cruz, O. (2012). Participação das mães na creche e no jardim de infância em Portugal (Mothers’ participation in childcare and preschool). AMAzônica, 5, VIII(1), 8–32. http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/revista?codigo = 18453.

Barros, S., & Leal, T. (2011). Dimensões da qualidade das salas de creche do distrito do Porto (Quality dimensions of day care classrooms in the district of Porto). Revista Galego-Portuguesa de Psicoloxía e Educación, 19 (2), 117–133.

Cruz, O., Aguiar, C., & Barros, S. (2004). Escala de Avaliação dos Estilos de Ensino: qualidades psicométricas dos dados (Teaching Styles Rating Scale: psychometric properties). Psico-USF, 9 (2), 165–171.

Pessanha, M., Pinto, A. I. & Barros, S. (2009). Influência da qualidade dos contextos familiar e de creche no envolvimento e no desenvolvimento da criança [Influence of quality of childcare and home environment in child engagement and development]. Psicologia, XXIII (2),55-71.

Teresa B. Leal. Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Rua Alfredo Allen, 4200–135 Porto, Portugal. E-mail: tleal@fpce.up.pt; Website: www.fpce. up.pt

Current themes of research:

Quality in preschool and elementary school education. Teacher-student interactions in classrooms. Language, literacy and social skills: relationships and evolution from preschool to elementary school. Adult-child interactions in shared story book reading. Participation in inclusive preschool contexts.

Most relevant publications in the field of Psychology of Education:

Abreu-Lima, I., Leal, T., Cadima, J., & Gamelas, A. M. (2013). Predicting child outcomes from preschool quality in Portugal. European Journal of Educational Psychology. DOI: 10.1007/s10212-012-0120-y

Cadima, J., Doumen, S., Verschueren, K., & Leal, T. (2013). Examining teacher-child relationship quality across two countries. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology. DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2013.864754

Cadima, J., Leal, T., & Burchinal, M. (2010). The quality of teacher-student interactions: Associations with first graders’ academic and behavioural outcomes, Journal of School Psychology, 48, 457–482. doi: 10.1016/j.jsp.2010.09.001

Cadima, J., McWilliam, R. A., & Leal, T. (2010). Environmental risk factors and children’s literacy skills during the transition to elementary school. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34(1), 24–33. doi: 10.1177/0165025409345045.

Cadima, J., Peixoto, C., & Leal, T. (2013). Observed Classroom Quality in First Grade: Associations with Teacher, Classroom, and School Characteristics. European Journal of Psychology of Education. DOI: 10.1007/s10212-013-0191-4

This article was based on data included in Sílvia Barros’ doctoral thesis, supervised by Professor Joaquim Bairrão (1935–2007) and Professor Teresa Leal, and funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Reference BD/10721/2002). The authors would like to thank FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, under the project PEst-OE/PSI/UI0050/2014.

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Barros, S., Leal, T.B. Parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of quality in Portuguese childcare classrooms. Eur J Psychol Educ 30, 209–226 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-014-0235-4

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