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Program Development, Assessment, and Evaluation in Early Childhood Care and Education
Asil Ali Özdoğru ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This book chapter reviews what is known about developing, assessing and evaluating early childhood care and education programs. It covers infant and toddler care, early education, after-school care and parenting programs. It describes the elements of program quality, the role of play-based and age-appropriate curriculum, and the use of child-level and program-level assessment. It also outlines evaluation approaches that study process, outcome, impact and cost-benefit.
Key points
- Early childhood is a fundamental period of human development, and care and education programs support children's physical, cognitive and socioemotional development.
- Program designers should aim for safe, healthy, responsive, engaging and developmentally appropriate programs.
- Curriculum should respond to children's needs and interests and offer meaningful, age-appropriate, play-based learning.
- Quality assessment tools share common features: reliability, validity, purposefulness and universality.
- Evaluation methods study program process, outcome, impact and cost-benefit.
Limitations
Only the abstract is available, so the specific studies, data and findings behind the synthesis cannot be checked. It names no country or setting, so it is unclear how well it applies to Africa or other low-resource contexts.
Abstract
Early childhood years are a fundamental period of development in human lifespan. Infant and toddler care programs, early childhood education services, after-school care programs, and parenting programs are foundational in the physical, cognitive, and socioemotional development of children. Development of quality early childhood programs can be realized through consideration of various elements of quality. Early childhood care and education (ECCE) program designers should aim to develop safe, healthy, responsive, engaging, and developmentally appropriate programs. Program curriculum, which takes place at the heart of program development, should also be responsive to children's needs and interests to construct meaningful, age-appropriate, and play-based learning experiences. Ongoing assessment and evaluation are integral part of quality ECCE program development. Early childhood assessment consists of child-level and program-level assessments. Assessment of children's developmental outcomes and program environmental characteristics play key roles in the development and evaluation of ECCE programs. Even though there are many available tools of assessment, common features of quality assessments include reliability, validity, purposefulness, and universality. Evaluation of early childhood programs makes use of different methodologies designed to study program process, outcome, impact, and cost-benefit. Development of quality early childhood care and education programs need systematic planning, implementation, and monitoring through the use of quality assessment and evaluation methodologies. This chapter provides a synthesis of the current state of knowledge in program development, assessment, and evaluation in early care and education based on high quality research studies coming from a variety of fields.