Parenting Gains in Head Start as a Function of Initial Parenting Skill

Purtell, Kelly M.; Gershoff, Elizabeth T.

doi:10.1111/jomf.12296

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These services may help support parents’ skills, capacities, and well-being, such as mental health and education, that are likely to be directly associated with children’s outcomes. Moreover, emerging evidence suggests that direct services for parents can be offered effectively through ECE and lead to both improved parent and child outcomes (Ansari, Purtell, & Gershoff, 2016; Grindal et al, 2016; Harding et al, 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Approach to Defining and Measuring Family Engagement in Early Childhood Education Programs

Sabol¹,

Sommer²,

Sanchez

et al. 2018

AERA Open

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Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Two-Thirds of all four-year-old children in the United States attend early childhood education (ECE) programs, and this number is expected to rise in the coming years (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). As ECE programs expand across the country, there is a growing recognition of the need to measure and improve quality across the diverse ECE landscape, including Head Start, state pre-kindergarten (prek), and community-based programs, to improve child outcomes. The major system that monitors center-based ECE programs in the United States is state-level Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). This paper explores how to maximize the effectiveness of QRIS for promoting child outcomes by improving the conceptualization and measurement of family engagement, which is one of the most common measures of quality within QRIS.Galvanized through the Race-to-the-Top Early Learning Challenge, QRIS attempt to improve the performance of individual programs by: (a) assessing ECE programs using a number of quality measures, (b) disseminating program ratings to the local public, and (c) offering improvement supports tied to programs' rating performance. The guiding framework behind QRIS is that top-rated programs represent higher levels of quality, which should mean that higher ratings are associated with greater gains in children's development and learning-a primary goal of early childhood Almost every state-level Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) in the country includes family engagement as an indicator of early childhood education quality. Yet, most QRIS measure family engagement using a uniform, narrow set of parent involvement activities at the center. We propose an alternative approach that emphasizes a range of direct services for parents, including: (1) parenting classes, (2) family support services, (3) social capital activities, and (4) human capital services. In our proposed rating systems, states would assess how well centers address the highest ranked needs of families and employ evidence-based practices across one or more of the center-selected direct parent service categories. We explore the feasibility of this approach through a qualitative study (n = 14 centers) and case examples. We discuss how this new rating system could be used to monitor quality and as a tool for program improvement to support child development.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Approach to Defining and Measuring Family Engagement in Early Childhood Education Programs

Sabol¹,

Sommer²,

Sanchez

et al. 2018

AERA Open

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The ATE for each subgroup was estimated by either restricting the analysis to that subgroup (i.e., subgroup analysis) or including a model parameter which assessed interaction between Head Start and the moderator (i.e., interaction analysis). Alternative methods included estimation of ATE in subgroups defined by post-randomization counterfactual care types in a principal stratification framework ( Feller et al, 2016 ; Zhai et al, 2014 ), and structural equation modeling methods, such as path analysis ( Lipscomb et al, 2013 ), latent class analysis ( Cooper & Lanza, 2014 ), and multiple group analysis ( Ansari et al, 2016 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For children with parents who were younger ( Lee, 2016 ) or had depressive symptoms ( Miller et al, 2016 ), the effects on cognitive outcomes were not statistically significant. Children with parents who had depressive symptoms at baseline were negatively affected by Head Start on social-emotional outcomes ( Cooper & Lanza, 2014 ) but these parents alleviated their symptoms after one year of Head Start ( Ansari et al, 2016 ). Younger parents were able to advance their education due to their children's Head Start assignment ( Sabol & Chase-Lansdale, 2015 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Treatment effect heterogeneity in the head start impact study: A systematic review of study characteristics and findings

Lee

Kim

Rodgers³

et al. 2021

SSM - Population Health

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There have been consistent efforts to assess treatment effect heterogeneity (TEH) of Head Start using the data from the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS), a randomized controlled trial of a federally funded child development program for a nationally representative sample of low-income parents and their 3- and 4-year-old children in the United States. Including 28 studies on TEH of Head Start, this review found that multiple high-risk subgroups (e.g., children with lower cognitive abilities, Spanish-speaking dual language learners) experienced larger gains across a range of developmental and parental outcomes, but mixed results for several subgroups. Most studies focused on subgroup analyses, cognitive and social-emotional outcomes, and short-term effects. Further studies on distributional effects, health and parental outcomes, and long-term effects are warranted. Finally, suggestions for future research on TEH of Head Start are discussed, which are applicable to other child development programs and policy evaluations.

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“…Prior studies have demonstrated that on average , Head Start has positive but relatively small effects on the frequency with which parents engage in math and literacy activities and on parents’ physical discipline (Ansari et al, 2016; Gelber & Isen, 2013; Puma et al, 2010). Significant average effects do not necessarily signal that treatment effects vary across programs, however, just as null average effects do not mean that there is no variation in impacts.…”

Section: Variation In Head Start Program Effects On Parenting Behaviorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior studies examining whether Head Start is effective at enhancing parents’ interactions with their children have found evidence for small to moderate impacts on the frequency with which parents engage in certain reading and math activities with children and their likelihood of spanking children (Ansari et al, 2016; Gelber & Isen, 2013; Puma et al, 2010). Not all Head Start centers are the same, however.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Just the Average Effect: Variation in Head Start Treatment Effects on Parenting Behavior

Padilla

2020

AERA Open

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Parent engagement has been a cornerstone of Head Start since its inception in 1965. Prior studies have found evidence for small to moderate impacts of Head Start on parenting behaviors but have not considered the possibility that individual Head Start programs might vary meaningfully in their effectiveness at improving parenting outcomes. The present study uses the Head Start Impact Study to examine the average effect of random assignment to and participation in Head Start on parenting outcomes as well as variation in that effect across Head Start programs. Findings reveal that Head Start is effective on average at promoting parents’ daily reading and overall literacy and math activities with children but that effects vary significantly for parents’ literacy and math activities, with some programs much more and some much less effective than their local alternatives. Findings also demonstrate that Head Start has consistent near-zero impacts across centers on parents’ disciplinary interactions with children.

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Parenting Gains in Head Start as a Function of Initial Parenting Skill

Cited by 14 publications

References 36 publications

A New Approach to Defining and Measuring Family Engagement in Early Childhood Education Programs

A New Approach to Defining and Measuring Family Engagement in Early Childhood Education Programs

Treatment effect heterogeneity in the head start impact study: A systematic review of study characteristics and findings

Beyond Just the Average Effect: Variation in Head Start Treatment Effects on Parenting Behavior

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