The impact of Child Development Associate training on the beliefs and practices of preschool teachers
Section snippets
CDA programs
In order to assess the impact of CDA training on teachers, we sought participation from programs that offered CDA training in the evenings or Saturday and that could be accomplished without college enrollment. Seventeen programs across Georgia met this criterion. Sixteen were sponsored by institutions of higher learning that had grants to offer CDA training. The remaining class was sponsored by a local resource and referral agency. These programs were in urban, suburban, and rural locations.
Preliminary analyses
Prior to conducting the main analyses, preliminary analyses were conducted to answer two questions. First, is the group difference in ethnicity responsible for any differences in changes between the pre and posttest scores of the two groups? A three-way 2 (time) × 2 (group) × 2 (ethnicity) MANOVA indicated a significant group × ethnicity interaction, F(4,119) = 3.77, p = .006. Follow-up ANOVAs showed a group × ethnicity interaction for the TBPS-Beliefs Scale, F(1,122) = 6.57, p = .012. African-Americans in the
Discussion
The primary goal of this study was to investigate the impact of CDA training on the developmentally appropriateness of the beliefs and self-reported practices of preschool teachers. The secondary goal was to investigate relations between teachers’ beliefs and self-reported practices. The findings suggest that CDA training increases the appropriateness of teachers’ beliefs and self-reported practices by reducing their contrasting beliefs and self-reported practices. This is an important result
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2020, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyCitation Excerpt :Therefore, we recommend that preschool teacher trainings in China be revaluated in terms of content and structure to be made more actionable and effective in rural preschool classrooms. Studies have shown that teacher-enacted practices in the classroom can significantly increase language and cognitive development in young children (Curby et al., 2009; Mashburn et al., 2008; National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Yoshikawa et al., 2013), and studies have indicated that training in teacher-enacted practices is especially effective for preschool teachers with little or no theoretical background in early childhood development (Heisner & Lederberg, 2011). We acknowledge three limitations of this study.
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2020, Early Childhood Research QuarterlyCitation Excerpt :Differentiating ideals of care that are enacted from those that are articulated but not enacted and those that are not articulated or enacted is a new approach that adds to what we can know about provider “beliefs” (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 2001; Quinn & Holland, 1987; Tonyan, Mamikonian-Zarpas, & Chien, 2013). Because we saw evidence that the Love and Affection cultural model was valued, enacted, or seen by two-thirds of the providers in our sample, this may be an important ideal to evaluate on a larger scale alongside other previously documented ideals like “Progressive” or “Developmentally Appropriate” beliefs (e.g., Forry et al., 2013; Heisner & Lederberg, 2011; Susman-Stillman, Pleuss, & Englund, 2013). In addition to addressing our main goals, the analyses presented here also documented some common barriers to providers being able to enact or see/assess/document Love and Affection.