Exploring the Interrelationship of Structure and Process in Family Child Care: The FCCERS-R and "Combined" CLASS

Abstract

This study examined the correlations between two prominent family child care environmental rating scales, the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale - Revised (FCCERS-R) and the "Combined" Classroom Assessment Scoring System ("Combined" CLASS), both of which were used during the pilot study of Washington State's Quality Rating Improvement Program, the 2010-2011 Seeds to Success. For the purposes of this cross-sectional, secondary data analysis, 42 family child care centers drawn from five communities in Washington State provided data for this analysis. Caregiver participants were female and were ethnically representative of Washington State. No child outcome data were recorded. When examining the within-scale overlap of the individual measures, most within-scale subscale scores were moderately to highly correlated. When examining the relationship between the FCCERS-R and "Combined" CLASS subscales, results show that there were only low correlations across subscales between the two instruments. Lastly, this study examined the underlying factor structure among all of the items from both measures. Through component analysis, three primary components were identified: Structure (FCCERS-R; 17 items), Process (CLASS; 7 items), and Intellectual Development (CLASS; 3 items). These findings suggest an opportunity to reduce the number of items used to assess family child care quality within each of these underlying domains. By reducing the items on the FCCERS-R in particular (from 43 to 17 items), it might be possible to reduce the time and resources needed to administer the entire measure. This potentially could reduce the time of administration by hours and significantly reduce the time needed to train coders. By potentially increasing efficiency in administration, this study might contribute to the ability of researchers and regulatory agencies to measure quality in child care homes, thus impacting quality of care in child care homes. Implications and future research directions are discussed.