Toward a Toolkit Approach to Describing Classroom Quality

Research conducted in preschool classrooms has long relied on measures of classroom quality that were developed in the 1980s based on theory and data available at that time. They examine classroom quality broadly, provide limited detail about supports for pre-academic instruction, and only weakly predict variation in children's acquisition of skills and knowledge critical for school readiness. This article draws on data from observational studies that employ more fine-grained instruments while arguing that the field needs a "toolkit" that includes measures that describe classrooms broadly, that focus on different content areas, and still others that examine fine-grained details of teacher–child interaction. Different combinations of measures could be used for accountability and research. The heterogeneity of tools could allow for cross referencing results from varied tools and progressive improvement in our identify features of classrooms that predict children's development.