Assessing child-care quality with a telephone interview

As increasing numbers of children enter child-care environments that are subsidized by federal and state funds, the demand has risen from policy makers and activists for valid, cost-effective methods of assessing the quality of those environments. In this study we asked whether data on child-care quality obtained from a telephone interview with the provider can serve as an adequate proxy for data obtained from direct observation. Observations were conducted in 89 family child-care homes and 92 centers using the Family Day Care Rating Scale (FDCRS) and the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale (ECERS-R), respectively. The target providers and teachers were subsequently interviewed by telephone using a protocol developed by the authors. For the family child-care providers, the 25 item telephone interview explained 49% of the variance (adjusted r(2)) in the total FDCRS score. Discriminant analyses revealed that the telephone interview was able to predict accurately 92% of the homes in terms of three FDCRS-derived categories of quality: "poor," "mediocre," or "developmentally appropriate." For the centers. the 22 item telephone interview accounted for 51% of the variance (adjusted r(2)) in the total ECERS-R score. The telephone interview was able to predict the classification of 89% of the centers in terms of the ECERS-R derived categories of "poor," "mediocre," or "developmentally appropriate." Shorter forms of the telephone interviews (12 items for family child-care; 13 items for center-based care) also demonstrated adequate predictive capability. These findings suggest that the telephone interview can be a valid source of data concerning the global quality of a child-care environment. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.