Center for the Study of Childcare Employment

Before 1998, most large-scale studies of center-based child care programs measured quality using the 1980 version of the ECERS. This study looked at the question of whether data from studies conducted after 1998, using the revised ECERS-R, can be fairly compared to data from studies using the 1980 ECERS. The results suggest that the original ECERS and ECERS-R can be viewed, as their authors intended, as comparable measures of quality. The report notes that both measures do not account for important quality issues such as addressing staff stability and culturally sensitive practice, such as communicating with families in their home language.