Examining the psychometric properties of the Infant–Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition in a high-stakes context
Section snippets
Sample
The sample consisted of 153 classrooms from 59 Colorado child-care centers. Staff from Qualistar Early Learning, a non-profit quality improvement agency in Denver, Colorado collected the data from July 2007 to February 2008. Centers were involved in a variety of child-care quality improvement efforts in Colorado and many had been previously assessed using the ITERS. The majority of infant/toddler classrooms in this sample were participating in a public policy initiative in Colorado aimed at
Descriptive statistics
In Table 1 we present the descriptive statistics of the ‘Full-ITERS-R score’ which ranged from 2 to 7, with a mean of 4.9. This mean falls within the ‘good’ category using the classification system developed by Howes, Phillips, and Whitebrook (1992). The high mean is probably explained by the fact that many of the providers in this study had participated in quality improvement initiatives and had been previously assessed for quality. On average, teachers had few ECE credits (M = 8.82) and the
Discussion
This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the ITERS-R; a widely used scale for the measurement of child-care quality. Results from an exploratory factor analysis indicate that all items load on a single factor, suggesting that the instrument does not measure six distinct dimensions of quality (recall that data on the 7th scale ‘Parents and Staff’ were not available). The high internal consistency estimates of the full instrument and strong inter-item correlations further suggest that
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the staff from Qualistar Early Learning center in Denver, Colorado for allowing us to use their child care center data.
References (38)
- 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) Proximal and distal features of day care quality and children's development
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(1993)- et al.
Towards a predictive model of quality in Canadian child care centers
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2006) - et al.
Measuring child-staff ratios in child care centers: Balancing effort and representativeness
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2006) - et al.
Examining the psychometric properties of the Early Childhood Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R)
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(2004) - et al.
Measurement of quality in child care centers
Early Childhood Research Quarterly
(1994) - et al.
Child/adolescent behavioral and emotional problems: Implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity
Psychological Bulletin
(1987) - America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being. (2006). Retrieved September 17, 2007, from...
- American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in...
The production of quality in child care centers: Another look
Applied Developmental Science
(2000)
Effects of day care on the development of cognitive abilities in 8-year-olds: A longitudinal study
Developmental Psychology
Quality of center child care and infant cognitive and language development
Child Development
Cognitive and school outcomes for high risk African American students at middle adolescence: Positive effects of early intervention
American Educational Research Journal
Improving the quality of infant–toddler care through professional development
Topics in Early Childhood Special Education (Austin)
Testing, reform, and rebellion
Does head start make a difference?
The American Economic Review
Frequency distribution of the values of the correlation coefficient in samples from an indefinitely large population
Biometrika
Peer contacts of 15-month-olds in childcare: Links with child temperament, parent-child interaction and quality of childcare
Social Development
Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale Revised Edition
Cited by (31)
Interactive effects of kindergarten organizational resources on classroom quality in an era of universalizing ECE in China
2020, International Journal of Educational ResearchCitation Excerpt :Many measurement instruments of overall quality include performance indicators at the teacher, classroom and center levels, but make judgments about overall center quality by aggregating the observed quality of individual teachers and classrooms. Researchers have found that there were substantial overlaps between the items of such instruments (Bisceglia, Perlman, Schaack, & Jenkins, 2009; Perlman, Zellman, & Le, 2004). An analysis of variance components found that approximately one-third of the variation in quality occurred across classrooms within the same center (Karoly, Zellman, & Perlman, 2013).
Global quality profiles in Chinese early care classrooms: Evidence from the Shandong Province
2019, Children and Youth Services ReviewCitation Excerpt :While many of the ITERS-R items assess structural elements, such as space, materials and time provided to support the range of activities to enrich children's experiences exploring objects and toys in their environments, another portion of items address the process elements such as how teachers intentionally enhance children's interactions with adults to promoting their social-emotional, cognitive and language development on top of ensuring their health and safety. When Bisceglia, Perlman, Schaack, and Jenkins (2009) conducted a factor analysis of ITERS-R with 159 sample toddler classrooms, they found a single scale factor that represented global quality. Thus, findings support the single factor nature proposed in the theoretical construction of the tool, measuring global quality with both structural and process components.
Environmental characteristics of early childhood education and care, daily movement behaviours and adiposity in toddlers: A multilevel mediation analysis from the GET UP! Study
2018, Health and PlaceCitation Excerpt :The quality of the ECEC centre environment was objectively assessed using the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-revised edition (ITERS-R) (Harms et al., 2017). This instrument measures the environmental quality of ECEC centres for children from birth to 30 months of age, which has been widely used to assess overall or global quality of child care environment (Harms et al., 2017; Bisceglia et al., 2009; Bjørnestad and Os, 2018). The definition and measures of quality in ITERS-R draws from research evidence from relevant fields including health, development and education and considers professional views of best practice and the practical constraints of real life in a ECEC setting.
Infant child care quality in Portugal: Associations with structural characteristics
2016, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyChinese Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (trial) (CECERS): A validity study
2014, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyCaregiver cognitive sensitivity: Measure development and validation in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) settings
2018, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyCitation Excerpt :Frequently used measures of quality, such as the Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale and its Revised form (ITERS/ITERS-R; Harms et al., 2003) and the Early Childhood Environment Rating System and its Revised forms (ECERS/ECERS-R; Harm and Clifford, 1985; Harms et al., 2003, 2014) examine multiple aspects of the child’s environment. However, researchers have found substantial overlap between the items on these scales (Bisceglia, Perlman, Schaack, & Jenkins, 2009; Perlman, Zellman, & Le, 2004; Scarr, Eisenberg, & Deater-Deckard, 1994). This suggests that there may be more efficient ways to capture classroom quality.