Day Care, Measuring Quality of Care

Michael E. Lamb

Researchers recognize that there are vast differences in the quality of care that children experience both in and outside their homes. Much of the literature confirms that children perform better on many dimensions when they have received care of higher quality. Measurement of quality has improved dramatically in the past two decades, and this has permitted significant progress in evaluating the effects of the quality of care on children's development. Researchers and policymakers have developed what are known as process and structural measures of quality. Conceptually, structural and process measures differ to the extent that factors indexed by the structural measures promote high-quality interaction and care but do not guarantee it, whereas process measures try to quantify the actual care received by children. In practice, however, some of the most popular process measures include indicators of environmental features (including those that index safety, for example) as well as indicators Observational ...

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