Object exploration is considered a driver of motor, cognitive, and social development. However, little is known about how early childhood education and care settings facilitate object exploration. This study examined if children's exploration of objects during free play was facilitated by the use of particular spatial components (floor, tables,…

Linking classroom quality to separate domains of child development might neglect the transactional interactions across developmental domains. This research utilized latent profiles across academic and social-emotional development to explore which aspects of classroom quality can predict children's profiles at the classroom level. Data were drawn…

The Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta et al., 2008) is a popular measure of teacher-child interactions. Despite its prominence, CLASS scores have fairly weak relations with various child outcomes (e.g., Zaslow et al., 2010). One potential reason for these findings could be systematic differences in observer severity. As such, the…

This study examined whether having vulnerable friends helps or hurts victimized and depressed (i.e., vulnerable) adolescents and whether this depends on classroom supportive norms. Students (n = 1461, 46.7% girls, 93.4% Han nationality) were surveyed four times from seventh and eighth grade (M[subscript age] = 13 years) in 2015 and 2016 in Central…

Observational studies comparing child outcomes in early care and education classrooms of differing quality are often confounded by between-child differences. A within-child design, tracking children across contexts, can identify the effects of quality with less confounding. An analysis of Australian children (N = 1128, mean age 5 years, 48%…

Examined cognitive and socioemotional development of 733 children from age 4 until age 8 as a function of quality of their preschool experiences. Found evidence that care quality has a modest long-term effect on cognitive and socioemotional development at least through kindergarten. Classroom practices related to language and academic skills. The…

This study examined development of academic, language, and social skills among 4-year-olds in publicly supported prekindergarten (pre-K) programs in relation to 3 methods of measuring pre-K quality, which are as follows: (a) adherence to 9 standards of quality related to program infrastructure and design, (b) observations of the overall quality of…

Used hierarchical linear modeling to explore the effects of the social context of Chapter 1 prekindergarten classrooms on 4-year-olds' learning. Found that children made smaller gains on the Preschool Inventory over the preschool year in classrooms with higher concentrations of minorities, children with special needs, recent immigrants, and…