Posted on February 10, 2022 by childrenslearninginstitute
Timeline:
2020-2024
Principal Investigator:
April Crawford, Ph.D.
Co-Investigator:
Cheryl Varghese, Ph.D.
Funding Agency:
Institute for Education Sciences
Description of the Project:
We will develop a generalizable professional development model, Core Coaching Competencies Professional Development (C3PD), that supports coaches who work with early childhood classroom teachers in diverse programmatic contexts (public school pre-K, Head Start, childcare). This project will iteratively develop a scalable, technology-mediated professional development model that trains coaches to implement evidence-based coaching strategies with early childhood classroom teachers, regardless of their setting.
Iterative development of C3PD materials (e.g., coaching video and resource library, PLS, PLC facilitation guides, implementation toolkit) will take place during the first two years of the project.
- In Year 2, a small sample (n =6) of coaches will provide feedback on online learning sessions,
materials, and PLC procedures. - During Years 3 and 4, we will conduct an underpowered RCT to evaluate the promise of C3PD. Coaches will be randomly assigned to C3PD or to a control group. Coaches and teachers will participate in Years 3 and 4, and students will be assessed only in Year 4.
We will continue to assess implementation fidelity and coaches’ perceptions of C3PD usability and feasibility. Project-aligned measures will be developed in Years 1 and 2 to gauge coaches’ fidelity to C3PD; Coach measures include coach knowledge, self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and growth in coaching competencies; teacher measures include self-efficacy, perceptions of school climate, satisfaction with coaching, and classroom observations. In Year 4, children will be assessed on language, literacy, and math measures; teachers will rate children’s behavioral and social competencies.
Analyses will explore the relation between C3PD and:
- Changes in coaches’ competencies
- Improvements in teaching quality
- Academic and behavioral/social outcomes for pre-k children
The team will calculate the costs of providing C3PD using the ingredients method. These costs and the effect sizes of coach, teacher, and student outcomes from the pilot study will be used to calculate cost ratios.
Participants:
Preschool classrooms across urban, suburban, and rural areas of Texas will be recruited and will include coach participants (n=48) from Head Start, public schools, and QRIS contexts. For each coach participant, 3 of their preschool teachers/classrooms (n=144) will be recruited. Within classrooms we will randomly select 4 consented children for testing.
Research Sites:
Urban, suburban, and rural Texas communities
