Elsevier

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Volume 53, 4th Quarter 2020, Pages 23-39
Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Evidence regarding the domains of the CLASS PreK in Head Start classrooms

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.01.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • More empirical evidence is needed about the dimensions of the widely-used CLASS PreK.

  • We estimated factor models in two national Head Start samples, FACES 2009 and 2014.

  • The CLASS' standard three domain structure was not best fitting in either sample.

  • No single structure fit best, and inter-factor correlations were moderate to high.

  • Associations with children’s academic and social-emotional gains were small.

Abstract

The standard scoring of the CLASS PreK produces three domain scores that are widely used in research, practice and policy. Despite these domains being based on developmental theory and research, limited empirical evidence exists for the three-domain structure as operationalized in the CLASS PreK. Using the 2009 and 2014 Head Start Family and Child Experiences Surveys (FACES), we estimated a series of exploratory and confirmatory bifactor and traditional factor analyses to produce evidence regarding this structure and possible alternatives in nationally representative samples of Head Start classrooms. Replicating and extending the small set of prior factor analytic studies, we found alternative factor structures fit equally well or better than the standard structure in both FACES 2009 and 2014 as well as problems with estimation and fit of a bifactor structure of general and specific factors proposed by the CLASS PreK developers. Across all domain structures, associations with children’s academic and social-emotional gains during the Head Start year were uniformly small and generally non-significant. Our findings encourage future refinements of the CLASS PreK and continued development of new measures to better operationalize its conceptually-motivated domains.

Section snippets

Prior research on the standard domains of the CLASS PreK

The CLASS PreK emerged from a synthesis of developmental theory and research, emphasizing teacher-student (adult-child) interactions as the main driver of children’s development and learning (Pianta et al., 2008). Based on this literature, the 10 CLASS PreK items (referred to as “dimensions” by the scale developers) were organized into three domains—Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support (see Table 1 for a list of the 10 item names by domain; Pianta et al., 2008).

Prior research on alternative general/specific domains proposed by the CLASS PreK authors

In a publication co-authored by two of the CLASS PreK developers (Hamre et al., 2014), an alternative domain structure was proposed that might address the limitations evident in prior studies. This structure had a general domain that included all 10 CLASS PreK items—referred to by the authors as Responsive Teaching. The authors described this as a “general dyadic systems-level property of teacher-child interactions…hypothesized to foster children’s development across all domains

Patterns of results across prior studies

Across the published studies, two patterns of results emerged that suggested possible alternative structures for the CLASS PreK. The first involved the number of domains and their corresponding items. Regarding the number of domains, the Instructional Support domain was consistently evident as a separate factor, but items from the Emotional Support and Classroom Organization domains were often combined. Regarding corresponding items, the Emotional Support and Classroom Organization domains were

Current study

In the current study, we replicated and extended recent factor analytic research based on CLASS PreK scores. We focused on Head Start classrooms, recognizing the program’s broad importance in the field of early care and education and the specific need to consider whether the use of the three standard CLASS PreK domains in the Head Start DRS is empirically supported. Our research questions were: (a) What alternative factor structures for the CLASS PreK are suggested by exploratory factor

Sample

We used data from the 2009 and 2014 Head Start Family and Child Experiences Surveys (FACES). The FACES studies provide nationally representative samples of Head Start children and the classrooms that they attended. Importantly for our study, the FACES surveys followed children from fall enrollment to spring completion of their first Head Start year, also observing their attended classrooms in the spring.

Data were collected by the policy research organization Mathematica under contract from the

Description of samples

The children in our analysis samples were balanced by gender (50% female in both 2009 and 2014) and diverse racial-ethnically (36% Hispanic, 22% non-Hispanic White, 35% non-Hispanic Black, 8% non-Hispanic Other in 2009, 38%, 31%, 23%, and 8%, respectively, in 2014; see again Appendix A3). As expected, based on Head Start enrollment guidelines, the majority of families (93% in 2009; 92% in 2014) had incomes below 200% of the federal poverty line. Sixty-nine percent of mothers in 2009, and 59% in

Discussion

The current study replicated and extended recent factor analyses of the CLASS PreK, focusing specifically on the measure’s domain structure within two nationally representative Head Start samples (FACES 2009 and 2014). Like earlier studies, we found that whereas the standard CLASS three-domain structure fit better than a one-domain structure, it did not meet absolute fit criteria and other structures were equally or better fitting.

Specifically, we found that a revised three-domain structure fit

Conclusions

In short, our results encourage continued efforts to improve existing and to develop new measures of early childhood classroom quality. As already noted, our results do not necessarily mean that other operationalizations of the theoretical framework underlying the CLASS PreK would not better identify the three expected domains and their anticipated associations with child outcomes. The CLASS PreK may also have value in certain uses, such as when offering formative verbal feedback to teachers

Acknowledgement

This paper was supported by grant R305A130118 from the Institute of Education Sciences.

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  • Cited by (0)

    This paper was supported by grant R305A130118 from the Institute of Education Sciences and we gratefully acknowledge the entire project team. The results and statements do not necessarily reflect the views of our funders, and all errors and omissions are our own.

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