Quality Thresholds, Features, and Dosage in Early Care and Education

Margaret Burchinal is a Senior Scientist at the FPG Child Development Institute and Research Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) and co-principal investigator for the project. She is an applied statistician who specializes in longitudinal data analysis and a developmentalist who is interested in how early childhood policy can provide increased opportunities for all children, especially children from low-income families.Martha Zaslow is Director of the Office for Policy and Communications of the Society for Research in Child Development and a Senior Scholar at Child Trends, and co-principal investigator for the project. Her research focuses on programs and policies to support the development of young children, and especially measuring and improving quality in early childhood programs. She served as co-principal investigator for this project.Louisa Tarullo is Associate Director of Research at Mathematica Policy Research and serves as Mathematica’s lead for early care and education policy. She directed the OPRE design project which funded the work of this monograph. Her research focuses on programs and policies to support optimal development and learning in children from birth through the early school years.Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal is an Associate Professor of Psychology and a Center Associate of the Learning Research and Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research aims to strengthen understanding of how key contexts, including early care and education settings, promote learning and socioemotional development during the transition to school and the early elementary school years.Portia Miller is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include poverty’s effects on child development, the intersection of poverty and place, and the role of early education in promoting school success.

• QUALITY THRESHOLDS, FEATURES, AND DOSAGE IN EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION: SECONDARY DATA ANALYSES OF CHILD OUTCOMESCONTENTS I.  QUALITY THRESHOLDS, FEATURES, AND DOSAGE IN EARLY CARE AND        7EDUCATION: INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEWMartha Zaslow, Rachel Anderson, Zakia Redd, Julia Wessel, Paula Daneri, Katherine Green, Elizabeth W. Cavadel, Louisa Tarullo,Margaret Burchinal, and Ivelisse Martinez-Beck  II.  QUALITY THRESHOLDS, FEATURES, AND DOSAGE IN             27EARLY CARE AND EDUCATION: METHODSMargaret Burchinal, Yange Xue, Anamarie Auger, Hsiao-Chuan Tien, Andrew Mashburn, Elizabeth W. Cavadel, and Ellen Peisner-Feinberg  III. TESTING FOR QUALITY THRESHOLDS AND FEATURES         46IN EARLY CARE AND EDUCATIONMargaret Burchinal, Yange Xue, Anamarie Auger, Hsiao-Chuan Tien, Andrew Mashburn, Ellen Peisner-Feinberg, Elizabeth W. Cavadel,Martha Zaslow, and Louisa Tarullo  IV.  TESTING FOR DOSAGE-OUTCOME ASSOCIATIONS IN    64EARLY CARE AND EDUCATIONYange Xue, Margaret Burchinal, Anamarie Auger, Hsiao-Chuan Tien, Andrew Mashburn, Ellen Peisner-Feinberg, Elizabeth W. Cavadel,Martha Zaslow, and Louisa Tarullo  V.  QUALITY THRESHOLDS, FEATURES, AND DOSAGE IN EARLY CARE     75AND EDUCATION: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONSMartha Zaslow, Margaret Burchinal, Louisa Tarullo, and Ivelisse Martinez-BeckREFERENCES        88APPENDIX         95ACKNOWLEDGMENTS       99  COMMENTARY  REFLECTIONS ON QUALITY AND DOSAGE OF PRESCHOOL AND CHILDREN’S DEVELOPMENT       100Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal and Portia Miller  CONTRIBUTORS        114 STATEMENT OF EDITORIAL POLICY       118  SUBJECT  INDEX       120