Structural predictors of child care quality in child care homes

Child care homes are the most common type of child care in the U.S. for very young children who receive regular non-parental care. Compared to center-based care, much less is known about relations between structural and process quality within this type of care. Further, professional associations have developed guidelines based on number and ages of the children in the child care home, but these have been empirically examined. We asked two questions in secondary analyses of two large studies of over 300 child care homes. First, we identified the structural dimensions that best predicted global quality. Regression analyses replicated previously reported finding that caregiver training, but not ratio, was the structural characteristic that most consistently predicted observed global quality. Next, we compared observed quality of care in child care homes as a function of the professional association's guidelines regarding group size weighted by age of the children. No reliable association between quality of care and ratio guidelines obtained. These findings suggest that parents and policy makers should rely more heavily on characteristics such as caregiver training or education than on group size or child:adult ratios as they make decisions about child care homes, at least among settings in which group sizes are small to moderate. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.