| Background : With the development of brain science,more and more countries recognize the importance of early education for infants and toddlers.At the same time,since the implementation of the "comprehensive two child" policy in China,the demand of families for early child care services has grown rapidly,and early child-care center have sprung up in an endless stream,and the quality of care institutions has become a new focus.Infant/Toddlers Environment Rating Scale(THRID EDITION)is the most widely used evaluation tool for infant/toddler learning environment in the world,but its applicability in Chinese early child-care institutions is still unknown.Therefore,the purpose of this study is to test the applicability of the Infant/Toddlers Environment Rating Scale(Third Edition)"(ITERS-3)in the evaluation of early child-care institutions in China,find out the problems existing in the application of the scale and explain the reasons,so as to provide suggestions for the localization revision and the quality evaluation tools of independent research in China.Methods:Purpose sampling combined with stratified random sampling were adopted,and the data were collected from 48 classrooms from 31 early child-care institutions in 6cities of Zhejiang Province in China.The quality of the class was measured by qualified rater after systematically trained,using ITERS-3 and CLASS-Toddler to observe and measure the sample class,and finally obtain the score of ITERS-3 and CLASS-Toddler in the 48 classroom.According to the test results of the scale,the reliability and validity ofITERS-3 in Chinese early child-care institutions will be tested,and the applicability of scale will be analyzed and discussed.Results: The results of data analysis show that ITERS-3 has good reliability and validity in Chinese institutions.From the result of the item analysis,the overall scale,6sub scales and 2/3 items showed the good degree of discrimination;from the reliability of measurement,the internal rater reliability and the internal consistency reliability of the scale was acceptable,and there was a significant positive correlation between the scores of total scale and 6 sub scales;from the validity of measurement,the total scale of ITERS-3and its five sub scales(space and furnishings,personal care routines,language and books,interaction,activities)had concurrent validity with the CLASS-Toddler;the results of variance analysis showed that ITERS-3 can distinguish the quality of domestic early child-care institutions.Discussion and Suggestions: Research evidence showed that ITERS-3 has a certain applicability in the evaluation of Chinese early child-care institutions,and the applicability of some items was insufficient.The reasons are:(1)the scientific and integrity of the evaluation system of ITERS-3;(2)the cross-cultural consensus on key elements of quality of early child-care institutions;(3)most of items were in line with the actual situation of early child-care institutions in China.However,according to the results of data analysis and the feedback of raters,there were still some items with insufficient suitability,which reflect certain cultural unsuitability when used in domestic early child-care institutions,and there were also some difficulties in the actual evaluation.Based on the research results,the researchers put forward suggestions for the revision of the scale indicators:(1)increase the scale level,distinguish the low and medium quality;(2)optimize the structure of the scale,and enhance the progressiveness among the items of different levels;(3)increase the items of group activities;(4)explain the concept and use of the items in detail.At the same time,the researchers put forward suggestions on the development of assessment tools for early child-care institutions in the Chinese social and cultural contexts:(1)take the current situation of Chinese early child-care institutions as the empirical ground;(2)pay attentionto the evaluation of process quality;(3)focus on children’s development,respect individual differences;(4)enhance the manipulability of indicator.Finally,the limitations of this study were reflected and the future research was prospected. |
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