Read the following article and provide some comments using statistical language and concepts.
The relationship between teacher qualification and the quality of the early childhood care and learning environment.
This Campbell systematic review examines the current empirical evidence on the correlation between teacher qualifications and the quality of the early childhood learning environments. The review summarises findings from 48 studies with 82 independent samples. Studies included children from pre-kindergarten and kindergarteners prior to elementary/primary school and centre-based providers.
Overall, the results show that higher teacher qualifications are significantly correlated with higher quality early childhood education and care. The education level of the teachers or caregivers is positively correlated to overall ECEC qualities measured by the environment rating scale. There is also a positive correlation between teacher qualification and subscale ratings including program structure, language and reasoning.
In this review we assess the correlation between teacher qualifications and measures of ECEC quality. There were 82 independent samples available for meta-analysis: 58 assessed the overall quality of ECEC as an outcome and 24 assessed ratings of Environment Rating Scales (ERS) subscales. The relationship between teacher qualifications and overall ECEC quality demonstrate a positive correlation that was statistically significant (r=0.198, confidence limits 0.133, 0.263)).
Below, in descending order of effect size (correlation coefficient r), results (for the 7 factor subscales) show:
a positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher qualifications and program structure (r= 0.224, 95% confidence limits 0.014, 0.415);
a positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher qualifications and activities (r=0.204, 95% confidence limits 0.140, 0.);
a positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher qualifications and language and reasoning (r=0.203, 95% confidence limits 0.122, 0.282);
a positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher qualifications and parent and staff (r=0.189, 95% confidence limits 0.049, 0.321);
a positive and non-significant relationship between teacher qualifications and space and furnishings (r=0.122, 95% confidence limits -0.042, 0.280);
a positive and statistically significant relationship between teacher qualifications and interactions (r=0.122, 95% confidence limits 0.053, 0.189); and
a positive and non-significant relationship between teacher qualifications and personal care (r=0.095, 95% confidence limits -0.053, 0.239).
In descending order of effect size, the 2 factor subscale outcomes evaluated show:
a positive and non-significant relationship between teacher qualifications and provisions for learning (r=0.173, confidence limits -0.054, 0.399)); and
a positive and non-significant relationship between teacher qualifications and language and interaction (r=0.096, confidence limits -0.172, 0.363)).
This review shows the significant association between having lead teachers with higher qualifications and the overall structural and process quality within ECEC settings. In this review, ECEC settings consist of centre-based classroom environments serving children of all ages (birth to prior to elementary/primary school age). The meta-analysis has drawn on a wide range of literature from 1980 onwards to provide statistically significant results on the relationship of teacher qualification to the quality of the early childhood learning environment. The learning environment consists of program structure, activities, language and reasoning, parent and staff, space and furnishing, interactions and personal care routines. In a two way-factor classification, the meta-analysis also reflects a positive correlation between teacher qualifications and ratings on language and interactions and provision for learning within ECEC settings. This means that higher teacher qualifications are related to improvements in supporting children’s development, including supporting language-reasoning experience, supervision and the scheduling of activities, organization and arrangement of the room, providing varied social experiences for children, and creating a warm and friendly environment for interactions.
The results are important for governments and stakeholders wanting to improve early childhood services to enhance children and family outcomes. Quality is closely linked to the level of staff qualification, which may indicate that it is important to have teachers with qualification higher than secondary education working with young children. The professionalization of the early childhood sector through more qualified staff may lead to significant gains for children and their families, contributing towards life-long outcomes that will benefit all of society.