From the publisher: Early childhood is a crucial stage in a child’s life, and aspects of the environment in the physical, social-emotional, cognitive, and health and safety domains all play important roles in shaping children’s development during these early years. Having a valid and reliable measure of the quality of these aspects of children’s care settings is critical. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale® (ECERS-3) is the leading research-based instrument for examining these influential global factors that directly impact children in early childhood environments.

In this new guide, readers will find an in-depth description of both the conceptual model underlying the ECERS-3 and innovative ways of analyzing data for a fuller understanding of what can be done with the scale and why it is integral to the evaluation of early care and education. The authors analyze a large database of classroom observations to help ECERS-3 users better understand, interpret, and utilize their own findings. Readers will also see how components of their ECERS-3 data relate to one another, within and across subscales, and within the scale as a whole.