The reliability and predictive validity of NAEYC accreditation criteria for early care and education programs

The purpose of this study was to reexamine the reliability and examine the predictive validity of the criteria used by early care and education programs in the process of accreditation by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. This study reexamined the criteria (originally researched by Bredekamp, 1985) by estimating the reliability at the item level and the component level. Percentages of agreement between child care centers and validators on rankings of fully met, partially met and not met were used at the item level. Correlation coefficients were computed at the component level. This study also determined, through a discriminant analysis, which components of criteria were most frequently associated with the decision to accredit a program.;Data for this study came from the National Association for the Education of Young Children and is comprised of 453 early care and education programs that completed the NAEYC accreditation process. Programs served children from birth through schoolage and represented 44 states and U.S. military programs operating in Germany and the United Kingdom. The primary sample used one classroom from all 453 programs. The secondary sample used every classroom, a total of 153, from 27 programs that served the widest age-range of children (infants through schoolage).;The results of the item-level analysis show high percentages of agreement, 90% or greater, between centers and validators, in 132 out of 177 criteria. The lowest percentage of agreement in the study was 68% on one criteria. The component-level analysis revealed high correlation coefficients,.81 in the primary sample and.97 in the secondary sample, between centers and validators ratings in all ten criteria components. In the discriminant analysis of the primary sample, the components Teacher-Child Interactions, Curriculum, Staffing, and Evaluation predicted the decision to accredit a program. In the secondary sample analysis, the components Teacher-Child Interactions and Staffing again predicted accreditation along with Health and Safety and Nutrition and Food Service.