Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES): 2006 Cohort United States, 2006-2009

Résumé 0

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) is a periodic, ongoing longitudinal study of program performance. Successive nationally representative samples of Head Start children, their families, classrooms, and programs provide descriptive information on the population of children and families served; staff qualifications, credentials, and opinions; Head Start classroom practices and quality measures; and child and family outcomes. FACES includes a battery of child assessments across multiple developmental domains (cognitive, social, emotional, and physical). For nearly a decade, the Office of Head Start, the Administration for Children and Families, other federal agencies, local programs, and the public have depended on FACES for valid and reliable national information on (1) the skills and abilities of Head Start children, (2) how Head Start children's skills and abilities compare with preschool children nationally, (3) Head Start children's readiness for and subsequent performance in kindergarten, and (4) the characteristics of the children's home and classroom environments. The FACES study is designed to enable researchers to answer a wide range of research questions that are crucial for aiding program managers and policymakers. Some of the questions that are central to FACES include: What are the demographic characteristics of the population of children and families served by Head Start? How has the population served by Head Start changed? What are the experiences of families and children in the Head Start program? How have they changed? What are the cognitive and social skills of Head Start children at the beginning and end of their first year in the program? Has Head Start program performance improved over time? Do the gains in cognitive and social skills that Head Start children achieve carry over into kindergarten? Do larger gains (or greater declines in problem behavior) translate into higher achievement at the end of kindergarten? What are the qualifications of Head Start teachers in terms of education, experience, and credentials? Are average teacher education levels rising in Head Start? What is the observed quality of Head Start classrooms as early learning environments, including the level and range of teaching and interactions, provisions for learning, emotional and instructional support, and classroom organization? How has quality changed over time? What program- and classroom-level factors are related to observed classroom quality? How is observed quality related to children's outcomes and developmental gains? FACES also supports analyses of subgroups of interest, such as children with disabilities, dual language learners, and children who are performing above or below average on standardized assessments. Its design changes in response to emerging policy and research questions. For example, in response to the growing concern about childhood obesity, measures of children's height and weight were introduced in FACES 2006. Measures for FACES 2006 were selected to balance the need to support comparisons to previous cohorts of FACES (particularly with respect to program performance measures) against the need to update the measurement battery and address emerging policy issues and benefits from progress in the assessment field. Many of the measures used in FACES 2006 were included in previous cohorts and they are presented below by the five major measurement sources in FACES: (1) child direct assessments; (2) parent interviews; (3) teacher interviews and survey; (4) classroom observations; and (5) program director, center director, and education coordinator interviews. The child direct assessments included the major components of school readiness. They included a language screener, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Fourth Edition/Test de Vocabulario de Imagines Peabody, subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Achievement Third Edition/Bateria III Woodcock-Munoz (letter word identification, applied problems, spelling, and word attack), a measure of early math literacy based on items from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth and Kindergarten Cohorts math assessments (geometry, patterns, and measurement), story and print concepts, and physical measurements (height and weight). At the end of the direct child assessment, interviewers rate the child's attention, organization/impulse control, activity level, and sociability using items from the Leiter-R scales. The parent interview was designed to provide Head Start with a comprehensive understanding of the families that they serve, including the demographic characteristics of households and household members, parent-child relationships and the quality of the child's home life, and parent ratings of the child's behavior problems, social skills, and competencies, levels and types of participation in the program and in other community services. The Head Start teacher interview was designed to collect information about classroom and teacher characteristics related to the quality of care provided by Head Start programs. Teachers were asked about their classroom activities and use of curricula, as well as their demographic and educational background and professional experience. They also used a Web survey to rate the social skills, problem behaviors, and competencies of each FACES child in their classroom. Kindergarten teachers provided information about schools attended by Head Start children, their classrooms and school experiences using a Web survey. They also completed ratings of each FACES child's social skills, behavior problems and competencies. The classroom observations were designed to measure peer interactions and the extent to which Head Start programs employed skilled teachers and provided developmentally appropriate environments and curricula for their children. The measures used included the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R), the Arnett Scale of Lead Teacher Behavior, and the Instructional Support scale from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). Counts of children and adults were also taken to calculate group size and child-adult ratios. The Program Director, Center Director, and Education Coordinator Interviews gathered information about staffing and recruitment, teacher education initiatives and training, waiting lists and program expansion, classroom activities, curriculum, overview of program management, and parent involvement. The User Guide provides detailed information about the FACES 2006 study design, execution, and data to inform and assist researchers who may be interested in using the data for future analyses. The following items are provided in the User Guide as appendices. Appendix A -- Copyright Statements Appendix B -- Instrument Content Matrices Appendix C -- Questionnaires Appendix D -- Center/Program Codebook Appendix E -- Classroom/Teacher Codebook Appendix F -- Child Codebook Appendix G -- Description of Constructed/Derived Variables