Methods and Measures for Understanding Children’s Experiences in Parent Aware Rated Programs

In March 2022, Child Trends contracted with the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF)¹ to evaluate Parent Aware, Minnesota’s quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) for early care and education (ECE) programs.² The evaluation included several research activities designed to assess to degree to which Parent Aware effectively supports the state’s children, families, and the ECE workforce.

In this brief, we provide the background and context for the Parent Aware evaluation and our guiding questions for the evaluation. Then, we discuss our reflections on the methods and measures we used to understand ECE quality and children’s experiences in Parent Aware Rated programs—particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the significant impacts it had on the ECE sector.^3,i This brief can inform approaches for ECE researchers and state QRIS leaders to measure and understand how quality in ECE programs and myriad other factors come together to shape children’s healthy learning and development.

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