The Moderating Effects of Quality Rating and Improvement Systems: On the Relationship Between Family Disadvantage and Children's Cognitive Skills

Introduction: Research has documented the importance of high-quality early childhood experiences in preparing children for school. “Quality Rating and Improvement Systems” (QRIS) have emerged in many states as a way to build quality of child care and to promote better child outcomes. However, studies examining the effects of QRIS on child outcomes are scarce. The purpose of this study was to examine an association between QRIS rating and children’s cognitive skills. Whether the child-care quality (i.e., QRIS rating) serves as a moderator of the relation between home environments and cognitive outcomes was also tested. We hypothesized that high-quality child-care will be more strongly predictive of cognitive outcomes for children in socioeconomically at risk environments.

Methods: Data used in this study included 313 preschool-age children from 36 QRIS-rated programs in a mid-western state. The state’s QRIS establishes 3 quality levels above the state’s licensing standards (1, 2, or 3) with a higher rating representing higher quality programs. Children’s cognitive skills were represented by a latent variable, which includes vocabulary skills measured by PPVT-III (Dunn & Dunn, 1997), phonological awareness measured by PALS-PreK (Invernizzi et al., 2004), and mathematical skills measured by WJ-III (Woodcock et al., 2001). Family disadvantage was measured by the risk index including single parent status, parents’ educational level, and household income. We used QRIS quality levels as a moderator: comparing children in the highest rated programs with those in programs with lower ratings. Children’s age, gender, race/ethnicity, parental depression, and cognitive stimulation at home were included as covariates.

Results: Results from the multilevel structural equation modeling revealed that children who were in the highest level of QRIS-rated programs attained better scores in cognitive assessments than those in lower level programs after controlling for covariates. To test the cross-level interactions, random slopes of family risk was regressed on QRIS status. The analysis revealed that there was a significant moderating effect of QRIS quality level on the relationship between family risk and children’s cognitive skills after controlling for covariates (γ = 1.30, SE = .05, p < .001), indicating that the negative effect of family risk on cognitive skills was buffered for the children in the highest level of QRIS programs. The negative relationship between family socioeconomic risk and children’s cognitive skills was no longer significant for children in the highest QRIS child-care quality level (γ = .13, p = .76).

Conclusions: This study suggests early childhood policymakers may be able to expect positive return on the current QRIS investments, especially for children in disadvantaged families.