HEAD STARTRESEARCH and EVALUATION (EHSRE) STUDY 1996-2010 (ICPSR)

Patricia LewisSoc. 680Fall 2013

Enhancing children’s development

Provide help for low income families

Offer program options based on family needs

◦ Home based option◦ Center based option◦ Combination option

FOCUS

1. Implementation Study 2. An Impact Evaluation 3. Local Research Studies 4. Policy Studies 5. Continuous Program Improvement

Five Major Components

Study Purpose: designed to carry out the recommendation of the Advisory Committee on Services for Families with Infants and Toddlers for a strong research and evaluation component to support continuous improvement within the Early Head Start program and to meet the 1994 reauthorization requirement for a national evaluation of the new infant-toddler program.

Purpose

Rigorous large-scale, random-assignment evaluation and included an implementation study and local research projects.

implementation study-consisted of 3 rounds of site visits

Impact study-followed 3,001 children from enrollment to age 3

Local research projects-designed to address specific outcomes and program functions that reflected the uniqueness of each Early Head Start program

Study Design

All eligible applicants selected were randomly assigned to the program or control group

All cases were targeted for all rounds of data collection

All data collected are in the public-use file

Sample

Self-enumerated questionnaires Personal interviews Direct Observation

Data Source

1. Birth to Three Phase (1996-2001)

2. Pre-Kindergarten Follow-up Phase (2001-2005)

3. Elementary School Phase (2005-2010)

Three Phases

One way ANOVA IV- Type of program DVs-Satisfaction with child learning, safety,

and attention the child got

Analysis Used

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

Results

Satisfaction with child learning in the program is measured at 15 months and 26 months and satisfaction with attention the child got is measured at 26 months and satisfaction with safety is measured at 26 months.

The results found when performing the ANOVA were that satisfaction with child learning at 15 months was significant at .035. P values less than .05 indicate there is a significant difference.

Results cont’d

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/3804

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/resource

LINKS

Only 12 fathers were interviewed and they were only interviewed when their child was older (24 and 36 months), whereas mothers were interviewed when the child was 14 months and again when their child was 24 and 36 months.

Limitation

Love, John M. 2010. “From Head Start to Early Head Start and Beyond.” Child Develop- ment and Social Policy: Knowledge for Action.

Raikes, Helen. 2010. “Involvement in Early Head Start home visiting services. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 21, (1), 2- 24.

Administration for Children and Families. Making a Difference in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers and their Families. Early Head Start Research and Evalua- tion Project.

References