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Holloway, S. D., Kagan, S.L., Fuller, B., Tsou, L., & Carroll, J. (2001). Assessing child-care quality with a telephone interview. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 16(2), 165-189.
The authors studied the validity of using telephone interviews as a tool to measure child care quality in either family- or center-based child care settings.
The Study
- Direct observation of children in care, while optimal for research, may be considered disruptive or intrusive by the provider. Telephone interviews were explored as a way to collect data without being intrusive.
The Methods
- Eighty-nine family providers and 92 centers from the San Francisco Bay area and from several communities in Connecticut participated in the study: 78% were white, 14% African American, 5% Latino, and 3% were Asian.
- Education varied from high school degree to Masters degree. Average experience providing care was 9.6 years.
- Family child care homes were observed by a researcher using the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS); within two weeks a second researcher conducted a phone survey with the family provider. The same procedure was used with center providers using the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale – Revised (ECERS-R).
- Phone assessments were conducted using the Berkeley-Yale Telephone Interview for Family Child Care Providers (BYTI-F) and the Berkeley-Yale Telephone Interview for Child Care Centers (BYTI-C).
The Findings
- This study found a positive relationship between the FDCRS score and family providers’ level of education meaning that providers with more education tended to provide more quality care. This finding has not been found in other similar studies.
- Comparisons of the FDCRS scores of family provider quality was matched 92.2% of the time with the BYTI-F.
- For child care centers, there was a positive relationship between quality in the classrooms and teacher’s education level.
- Comparisons in classifications using the ECERS-R and the BYTI-C long form showed 89.4% of providers were correctly classified by the telephone interview. BYTI-C short form was able to match ECERS-R 79.1% of the time.
- Overall, phone interviews were deemed sufficient in gathering needed data from either family-based or center-based child care. There was also little difference in outcomes using the long form or the short form telephone interview.
R2P Evaluation
This is an important study because it offers an alternative form of data collection. Most literature has shown that it is difficult to gain access to family-based child care providers for research purposes. Efficacious telephone surveys may help in data collection.
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