Measuring the Multifaceted Nature of Infant and Toddler Care Quality

ABSTRACTResearch Findings: The quality of group care infants and toddlers experience relates to their concurrent and later development. Recent quality improvement initiatives point to the need for ecologically valid measures that assess the multifaceted nature of child care quality. In this article, we present the psychometric properties of an infant and toddler quality assessment tool, the Program for Infant and Toddler Care Program Assessment Rating Scale (PITC PARS). Descriptive data on 222 center-based classrooms and family child care programs were used to examine concurrent validity, and a subsample of 101 center-based classrooms serving infants was used to examine the factor structure of this measure. Examination of the bivariate correlations with other commonly used measures of infant and toddler child care quality provided evidence of concurrent validity. Factor analysis suggested that the PITC PARS measures 3 distinct yet related dimensions of global child care quality. Practice or Policy: The re...