Study of Coaching Practices in Early Care and Education Settings

2016 - 2021

The Study of Coaching Practices in Early Care and Education Settings explores

  • how coaching practices are implemented in early care and education (ECE) classrooms serving children supported by Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) subsidies or Head Start grants
  • how core features of coaching vary by key contextual factors
  • which core features are ripe for more rigorous evaluation

The project established an empirically supported conceptual model and a set of surveys to explore the variability of coaching features in ECE center and family based child care. Follow-up surveys were collected to examine the extent and viability of coaching and professional development given the impact of COVID-19 on the child care and early childhood education landscape.

The 2019 web surveys were completed with directors, coaches, and child care providers/teachers working in 60 center-based programs and 40 family child care homes. The follow up surveys reached out from June through October of 2021 to the same sample to ask about the current implementation of coaching and professional development.  The study findings may inform future evaluations of the core features of coaching while also informing coaching practices in the field.

This work is being carried out by Mathematica in partnership with Child Trends and the Children’s Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, under a subcontract with ICF.

Point(s) of contact: Wendy DeCourcey

This study is registered on the ClinicalTrials.gov site under the title Study of Coaching Practices in Early Care and Education Settings  Visit disclaimer page [The registration number is NCT03743337]

Related Resources

The Study of Coaching in Early Care and Education Settings (SCOPE) was designed to examine the variations in coaching in ECE.

This brief focuses on information from the SCOPE 2019 surveys with coaches, center teachers, and FCC providers. We describe information from the coaches, teachers, and FCC providers related to the coaches’ caseloads and the dosage of the coaching.

This brief describes information about coaching that we gathered in 2021—about 18 months into the pandemic—from surveys and qualitative interviews with coaches, FCC providers, and center directors. We focus on understanding remote coaching and various coaching strategies, such as modeling and observation, during this time frame.

This project snapshot provides an overview of the SCOPE study design and describes its primary goals, data collection topics, and respondent information. 

The Study of Coaching in Early Care and Education Settings (SCOPE) was designed to examine the variations in coaching in ECE.

This contract was awarded to Mathematics Policy Research and will explore how coaching practices are implemented and vary in early care and education (ECE) classrooms serving children supported by Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) subsidies or Head Start grants. This project aims to advance understanding...