Impact of experience, education, professional development and perception of teaching on the endorsement of developmentally appropriate practices

Abstract

Developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) help to promote high quality child care environment. The likelihood that an early child care teacher or educator practices (DAP) may be impacted by a wide variety of factors including their experience, education, professional development and perception of teaching. Whereas many studies focus on the presence of DAP in the classroom, the current study focused on beliefs about DAP. Educators (N=100) completed a questionnaire that, among other things, asked educators about their beliefs about DAP. Overall the study found that the educator's education level and training, professional development, and perception of the job impacted their beliefs about DAP but that experience did not. In addition, the study found that "strong" DAP were more often endorsed than "weak" DAP. Together, these findings support the idea that educator's beliefs about how to promote a high quality child care environment are influenced by individual differences.