Participant Characteristics
This instrument is designed to collect background data on participants and can be used to assess whom your initiative is serving. It will provide you with information on the participants' education levels, ethnicity and language, as well as information about their income.
Program/Facility Characteristics
This instrument is designed to collect background data on child care programs, rather than individual providers. The data collected by this instrument will provide you with information on the child care programs participating in your initiative. The instrument provides information on the number of children enrolled, the number and qualifications of the staff, the child care schedules, and other aspects of the program.
Participant Statistics
To assess a program's effectiveness in delivering services, this instrument was developed to collect data on the number of participants that were recruited, the number that enrolled, and the number that completed your initiative.
Initiative Characteristics
This instrument will provide you with descriptive data about your initiative. This instrument will enable you to obtain information about the format of the initiative, who administered it, its duration, and the nature of the service delivery.
Initiative Content
This instrument will enable you to evaluate the content of your initiative. It can be used to assess the material covered in the initiative or to evaluate the topics in a training series. This tool should be modified to reflect the specific content of your initiative.
Satisfaction
This instrument is designed to assess participants' satisfaction with an initiative or with its services.
Use of Additional Child Care Quality Resources
This tool can be used to survey participants' interest in additional services. This instrument includes a complete list of quality improvement strategies so that participants' interest in the range of services can be evaluated. The list should be adapted to reflect the services offered in your state or locality.
Assessment of Knowledge and Skills
The instrument can be used to measure changes in knowledge and skills, an outcome anticipated from professional development initiatives, those that offer training or technical assistance as well as those that offer materials and equipment. The questionnaire can be used as a screening tool to assess providers' knowledge before they participate in the initiative, as a measure of the effect of the initiative.
Changes in Compensation and Benefits
This survey instrument collects data on changes in job status, salary, and benefits. In addition, it asks questions about the status of the participant's employment in the child care field. It includes open-ended questions to enable the respondent to share his/her views. It can be adapted to assess initiatives that provide support for participating in professional development activities such as credit-bearing courses, programs that offer credentials, certificates, and degrees as well as financial aid to enhance access to these kinds of education. It can also be used for initiatives such as career development systems, compensation and accreditation that support structural changes.
Retention and Turnover
There are two versions of this instrument. One is designed for individual providers; the other for child care administrators. Each asks questions about current employment in child care. The questionnaires are intended to be used at varying intervals after the initiative ends. You can use them in their entirety or adapt them by referring to your own initiative.
Practice
We include three samples of instruments to assess caregivers' practice. Two of these instruments are designed for providers; the third for child care administrators. Each is based on information gathered from participants rather than observations that are conducted by someone else. Like the tools for measuring changes in knowledge and skills, these instruments can be used for initial assessments as well as for evaluating outcomes. You can use them without making any changes or you can tailor them to reflect the content of your initiative.
Child and Family Experiences
This questionnaire is designed to collect data about parents' perspectives on changes that result from efforts to improve child care quality. You can modify the questions to address the content of initiatives that offer training, professional development or technical assistance on specific topics. You can also use it to evaluate parents' reactions to accreditation efforts.
Child Engagement
This questionnaire can be tailored to the specific kinds of materials distributed by the initiative. It can also be used to evaluate the initiatives that provide support for start up.
Changes in Licensing Status
This instrument is used to record the status of participants with respect to the licensing process and training hours.