Public pressure on evaluation has influenced educational projects and national evaluation systems for many decades. This article extends the ongoing discussions in the field, offering a problematising exploration of evaluation as an educational policy phenomenon, thinking with the notion of rhythm in the analysis. Approaching educational…

In March 2022, Child Trends contracted with the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to conduct an independent evaluation of Parent Aware, Minnesota's quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) for early care and education (ECE) programs. The evaluation, required by the 2021 Minnesota Legislature, includes several research activities…

The aim of the article is to support critical consideration about what quality is and might be in ECEC. It argues that two different quality cultures -- understandings of what quality is, how it may be understood and supported -- intersect and create tensions in relation to the ECEC area in Denmark. One is analyzed as influenced by a transnational…

In many countries, play is the vehicle for teaching and learning, requiring early childhood teachers to recognize and assess children's demonstrations of knowledge and capabilities as they are displayed during play. In the context of science learning, assessing what children know already, referred to as "assessment for learning," equips…

In this article, we intend to illustrate the notion, practice, and evaluation methods and results related to building an effective, efficient, and equitable early care and education (ECE) system. We point out the dominant approach, in practice and evaluation, of focusing on a single ECE program to improve ECE, propose a model of developing an ECE…

Research Findings: A growing number of stakeholders in early childhood education (ECE) rely on self-assessment to assess and improve the quality of ECE. In this systematic review, we investigated the reliability and validity of self-assessment in ECE, summarizing findings from 27 publications. We meta-analytically synthesized findings from 25…

The problem addressed by this study was low-quality early childhood education and care programs due to low teacher educational qualifications. Poor quality early childhood education and care programs can be harmful to a child's social and emotional development, leading to poor health, economic, and behavioral outcomes. The purpose of this study…

Quality early childhood care and education (ECCE) is important for young children's holistic healthy development. As ECCE scales, contextually relevant and feasible measurement is needed to inform policy and programs on strengths and areas for improvement. However, few measures have been designed for use across diverse contexts. Drawing on…

The purpose of this research is to study and describe the ideas of the directors about the quality of the preschool level, to study possible problems that they have to face when organizing conditions in preschool organizations, approaches to the formation of a standard for preschool education. Since the solution of managerial problems related to…

Following a set of state meetings held throughout fall 2020, the Virginia Education Assessment Collaborative (VEAC) decided to offer a mini-conference in November 2020 to round out offerings and to buttress conversation around topics of high need and interest to Educator Preparation Providers (EPPs). Leveraging the familiar process of the…

Learning stories have been used in Aotearoa New Zealand early learning settings for over two decades to capture children's learning while honouring the intent of "Te Whariki" to nurture children's languages, cultures, and identities. This article provides a brief overview of a listening, dialogic investigation into ways the community of…

In 2018 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched its International Early Learning Child Well-being Study (IELS), also known as Baby PISA. In the first round of data collection, the IELS focused on three OECD countries: England, Estonia and the United States. In this article we show that a similar study of…

This design case presents the conceptualization, design, and development of Early Science Matters (ESM), an online teacher professional development (oTPD) program for early childhood teachers. The program design consisted of five primary features that were expected to promote participant learning, including (1) visually oriented content, (2)…

The Early Childhood Data Use Assessment Tool is designed to identify and improve data use skills among early childhood education (ECE) program staff so that they can better use data to inform, plan, monitor, and make decisions for instruction and program improvement. Data use is critical in quality ECE programs but can be intimidating for some ECE…

A southeastern state engaged in a systematic landscape study to identify needs and priorities for young children and their families. Early childhood and research methods experts, representing five Institutions of Higher Education (IHE), along with equity and family engagement experts developed three strategies to collect data from various…