Are You Ready for It? Educator Readiness for Change and STREAMin³ Curriculum Implementation

Abstract Effective implementation of comprehensive early childhood education (ECE) curricula is considered a key component in supporting children’s cognitive and social-emotional development. However, limited research has examined how educator-level factors, such as readiness for change (RFC), are associated with curriculum use during large-scale implementation efforts. This study investigated associations between early educators’ RFC and their self-reported implementation of the STREAMin 3 curriculum during its statewide rollout in Virginia. Drawing on survey data from 1,392 educators working in birth-to-five publicly funded ECE settings, we examined whether educators’ ratings of RFC in the fall were related to two measures of implementation fidelity, responsiveness and dosage, collected across three time points. Regression analyses indicated that higher RFC was associated with higher reported responsiveness to the curriculum in both fall and spring, as well as greater reported curriculum use during the winter. These findings add to the literature on educator readiness and early childhood curriculum implementation, underscoring the potential value of considering RFC in efforts to support uptake of comprehensive curricula across diverse ECE settings.