In recent years, ECE researchers and policymakers worldwide have recognised the importance of employing a quality evaluation system as a method to evaluate and prompt improvements.  While the primary goal of quality evaluation systems is to improve the quality of ECE through statewide improvements, it allows opportunities for parents and other stakeholders to understand indicators of quality and thus demand higher quality services from practitioners. An effective quality evaluation system serves many purposes, such as aligning licensing, subsidies, and quality across a variety of settings and programs, providing an accountability measure for funding, and linking technical support and initiatives to the nation’s quality and child development framework.  Therefore, the validation of the quality rating system is necessary to ensure accurate and meaningful ratings.  

 

While the validation of such a system is a multi-step process, empirical research has supported the following four approaches.  In the first approach, researchers sought out empirical and expert support for each standard included to make sure that quality components capture the key elements of quality (Elicker Langill Ruprecht and Kwon 2007).  In the second approach, validation studies involve examining how a given indicator measures what it purports to measure through different methods, including observations, administrative self-reports, and documents review (Tout et al. 2011).  In the third approach, validation activities often apply a well-known external measure of quality to detect whether the quality levels determined by the QRIS rating actually differentiated quality across various settings and types of programmes. In fourth validation approach, in which researchers try to establish the validity of the QRIS through answering the question: do children attending programmes of higher ratings produce better scores on outcomes than children who attend programmes of lower quality?

 

China’s ECE policies regarding quality practices have been driven primarily by ideological regulations that are often unable to pinpoint weaknesses for improvement (Hu & Li, 2012). As Ministry of Education in most provinces in China sought out reform efforts to revise current Kindergarten Quality Rating System (KQRS), guided by the aforementioned validation framework, we aim to conduct a series of studies to validate the current KQRS in Chinese kindergarten systems in order to provide empirical evidences for establishing effective and accountable quality evaluation systems for monitoring and improvement purposes.

 

On-going Research Projects

 

What constitute quality early childhood education in Chinese sociocultural contexts?

 

Parental and professionals' views about quality early childhood education in China

 

Evaluation of China's Kindergarten Quality Rating System

 

A validity study of Guangdong's Kindergarten Quality Rating System through the Classroom Assessment Scoring System

 

 

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