Consider what you think was the most important environmental factor provided by the program studied in North Carolina. Why do you feel this particular piece was likely the most influential on children and why?

Because children's outcomes are influenced by the multiple environments they encounter, 2 including both family and child care settings, there has been growing interest in research about the effects of child care experiences on children's development. Moreover, the reported average quality of child care in the US falls short of the standards recommended by early childhood professionals, 3-6 leading to concerns about how the quality of such environments affects children's development. Coupled with the widespread interest in promoting children's school readiness skills, a number of research studies have examined the extent to which variations in the quality of preschool child care experiences influence children's cognitive and social skills during the preschool years, during the transition to school, and into the elementary school years. Examination of the quality of child care has weighed a variety of factors, including classroom practices (eg, materials, activities, daily organization), teacher-child relationships (eg, teacher sensitivity, warmth and closeness of the relationship with the child), and teacher qualifications (eg, education and training levels).

Problems

One difficulty with examining the impact of child care quality is the issue of family selection factors. Families choose the child care they use, and families with differing characteristics may choose different types and quality of care. In particular, studies have suggested that socio-economically advantaged families tend to choose higher quality care for their children. 7-10 Therefore, it may not be possible to completely separate the developmental effects of child care quality from the effects generated by family factors. While more recent studies have adjusted statistically for these family selection factors, they may underestimate the effects of child care quality when the two are highly correlated.

A second difficulty in this area of research is the need for longitudinal studies which also include varying levels of child care quality and representative samples of adequate size in order to examine the longer-term effects of child care quality on children's development. While a few studies do exist (most notably, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care; and the Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers Study), the expense and complexities of undertaking this type of research limit the availability of such data.