Introduction
Understanding Data Use for Continuous Quality Improvement in Head Start Brief summarizes common themes across two studies of local Head Start programs and a multidisciplinary literature review. The brief provides preliminary evidence that Head Start programs experience similar challenges and facilitators to data use for continuous quality improvement as those experienced in other fields including leadership, analytic capacity, commitment of resources, professional development, a culture of collaborative inquiry, a continuous cycle of data use, organizational characteristics, and environmental characteristics. The brief provides an overview of the findings and poses questions for future research to better understand the relationships between the elements examined, the extent to which particular Head Start characteristics do create differences in the facilitators and impediments as compared to other fields, and the extent to which data use strategies actually result in measurable improvements in quality.