Impact of In-Service Professional Development Programs for Early Childhood Teachers on Quality Ratings and Child Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. (June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Egert, Franziska; Fukkink, Ruben G.; Eckhardt, Andrea G.
• Is Part Of: Review of educational research. Volume 88:Number 3(2018)
• Page Start: 401
• Page End: 433
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Subjects: professional development -- in-service training -- early childhood education and care -- meta-analysis; Education -- Periodicals; Education -- United States -- Periodicals; Education -- Bibliography -- Periodicals; 370.7
• DOI: 10.3102/0034654317751918
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0034-6543

Abstract

High pedagogical quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is related to developmental outcomes in young children. This review summarizes findings from (quasi)-experimental studies that evaluated in-service training effects for ECEC professionals on external quality ratings and child development. The aggregation of findings at teacher level (including 36 studies with 2, 891 teachers) revealed a medium in-service training effect on process quality (effect size [ES] = 0.68, SE = 0.07, p < .001). Furthermore, a subset of nine studies (including 486 teachers and 4, 504 children) that provided data on both quality ratings and child development were analyzed, and they showed a small effect at child level (ES = 0.14; SE = 0.02, p < .001) and a medium effect at the corresponding classroom level (ES = 0.45, SE = 0.11, p < .001). Variance in effect sizes at child level was significantly related to in-service effects on quality ratings (53% explained variance). The results show that quality improvement is a key mechanism to accelerate the development of young children.