Journal of Early Intervention, 2001 Vol. 24, No. 1, 1-14 Copyright 2001 by the Division of Early Childhood, Council for Exceptional Children FEATURE ARTICLE Evaluating Parent Involvement and Family Support in Early Intervention and Preschool Programs DONALD B. BAILEY, JR. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Early intervention and preschool programs for children with disabilities are also accountable for providing certain types of support for families. How should these efforts be evaluated? This article describes three potential levels of accountability: (a) providing the legally required services for familiesf (b) providing services that are considered recommended, and (c) achieving certain outcomes as a result of working with families. Issues and considerations related to each level of accountability are discussed and recommendations are made for advancing policy and practice related to the evaluation of parent involvement and family support efforts. A combination of legislative initiatives, fam- ily advocacy efforts, theory, and research has led to wide acceptance of the assumption that early intervention exists not just to support young children with disabilities, but also to support their families. Exactly what is meant by parent involvement and family support continues to be discussed, but at least three themes have emerged around which there is general consensus (Bailey et al., 1986; Bailey et al., 1998; Brewer, McPherson, Magrab, & Hutchins, 1989; Dunst, 1985; Shelton, Jepp- son, & Johnson, 1987). First, parent involve- ment and family support programs need to be individualized, given the diversity of family resources, priorities, concerns, and cultures. Second, parents should be given every oppor- tunity to participate as active partners in plan- ning services for their child and for them- selves, requiring professionals to engage in practices that recognize, value, and support this type of relationship. Third, since families are the ultimate decision makers and long- term care providers for their children, services should be organized in ways that enable fam- ilies to feel and be competent in advocating for services and otherwise meeting the needs of their young child with a disability. As states and local programs strive to provide a variety of family support initiatives, a funda- mental question remains unanswered: How should we evaluate whether parent involvement and family support efforts have been successful? In this paper I place this question in the context of accountability and propose three potential levels of accountability. Challenges associated with each level are presented, and I conclude with several potential recommendations for the field. PROGRAM EVALUATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY The principles and processes underlying pro- gram evaluation have been well described over the past few decades (Fink, 1995; Popham, 1993; Walberg & Haertel, 1990; Worthen, Sand- ...

1. Journal of Early Intervention, 2001
Vol. 24, No. 1, 1-14
Copyright 2001 by the Division of Early Childhood, Council for
Exceptional Children
FEATURE ARTICLE
Evaluating Parent Involvement and Family
Support in Early Intervention and
Preschool Programs
DONALD B. BAILEY, JR.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Early intervention and preschool programs for children with
disabilities are also accountable
for providing certain types of support for families. How should
these efforts be evaluated? This
article describes three potential levels of accountability: (a)
providing the legally required
services for familiesf (b) providing services that are considered
recommended, and (c)
achieving certain outcomes as a result of working with families.
Issues and considerations
related to each level of accountability are discussed and
recommendations are made for
advancing policy and practice related to the evaluation of parent
involvement and family
support efforts.
A combination of legislative initiatives, fam-
ily advocacy efforts, theory, and research has

2. led to wide acceptance of the assumption that
early intervention exists not just to support
young children with disabilities, but also to
support their families. Exactly what is meant
by parent involvement and family support
continues to be discussed, but at least three
themes have emerged around which there is
general consensus (Bailey et al., 1986; Bailey
et al., 1998; Brewer, McPherson, Magrab, &
Hutchins, 1989; Dunst, 1985; Shelton, Jepp-
son, & Johnson, 1987). First, parent involve-
ment and family support programs need to be
individualized, given the diversity of family
resources, priorities, concerns, and cultures.
Second, parents should be given every oppor-
tunity to participate as active partners in plan-
ning services for their child and for them-
selves, requiring professionals to engage in
practices that recognize, value, and support
this type of relationship. Third, since families
are the ultimate decision makers and long-
term care providers for their children, services
should be organized in ways that enable fam-
ilies to feel and be competent in advocating
for services and otherwise meeting the needs
of their young child with a disability.
As states and local programs strive to provide
a variety of family support initiatives, a funda-
mental question remains unanswered: How
should we evaluate whether parent involvement
and family support efforts have been successful?
In this paper I place this question in the context
of accountability and propose three potential
levels of accountability. Challenges associated

3. with each level are presented, and I conclude
with several potential recommendations for the
field.
PROGRAM EVALUATION AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
The principles and processes underlying pro-
gram evaluation have been well described over
the past few decades (Fink, 1995; Popham,
1993; Walberg & Haertel, 1990; Worthen, Sand-
ers, & Fitzpatrick, 1997). Many definitions of
Bailey 1
evaluation have been offered, but the essence of
each focuses on determining the worth of a pol-
icy, program, or practice. Evaluation can and
usually should involve multiple methods of data
collection, analysis, and interpretation. Unlike
more basic research, however, which seeks to
understand fundamental laws or principles that
underlie behavioral or biological phenomena,
evaluation seeks to determine whether a partic-
ular policy, program, or practice is worthwhile,
better than other alternatives, affordable, ac-
ceptable to others, and effective in meeting the
needs of the individuals it is designed to serve.
Before an evaluation can be done, a clear de-
scription of the policy, program, or practice be-
ing evaluated is essential. An obvious challenge
is that parent involvement and family support
efforts in early intervention are multifaceted and

4. can be conceptualized simultaneously as a set
of policies, a set of program models, and a var-
iable set of practices. As a policy, parent in-
volvement and family support efforts are rooted
primarily in the Individuals with Disabilities Ed-
ucation Act (IDEA). Part C of IDEA explicitly
acknowledges that a primary goal of early in-
tervention is to help families meet the special
needs of their infant and toddler with disabili-
ties. Part B, which addresses preschoolers and
school-aged children, is less explicit about fam-
ily support as a primary goal, but contains a
number of provisions regarding family rights
and responsibilities in the context of deciding
on goals and needed services for their children.
As a program, no one model characterizes
parent involvement and family support pro-
grams in early intervention and preschool pro-
grams, as enormous variability exists (Beck-
man, 1996; Harbin, McWilliam, & Gallagher,
2000). Although IDEA describes 16 compo-
nents required of a statewide system of early
intervention, within these guidelines states are
given tremendous latitude in the way state and
local programs are organized. Parent involve-
ment and family support efforts are often part
of a larger program of services, and might in-
clude home visits, parent support groups, par-
ent training activities, respite care, resource
and referral, or service coordination.
As a set of practices, there is also enormous
variation in the behaviors and activities of
professionals who are affiliated with parent in-

5. volvement and family support programs.
Working with families includes a wide variety
of practices that cumulatively lead to a per-
ceived and actual level of family support. Ear-
ly intervention and preschool personnel estab-
lish relationships with families, listen and re-
spond to families' priorities and concerns, try
to understand family perspectives, build on
(and try not to supplant) informal support sys-
tems, employ help-giving practices and atti-
tudes that are consistent with current litera-
ture, and assist families in accessing commu-
nity resources (Bailey, 1994; Dunst, Trivette,
& Deal, 1994).
A fourth dimension could also be added,
namely that many of these programs and prac-
tices are based on philosophical perspectives
and assumptions which have consequences for
the nature and type of services provided. For
example, one program might have family em-
powerment as its primary goal, based on the
philosophical assumption that the primary
goal of early intervention is to enable families
to secure their own services and make major
decisions about allocations of time and re-
sources (e.g., Dunst, Trivette, & Deal, 1988).
Another program, however, might have "par-
ents as teachers" as its primary goal, based
on the philosophy that families are the best
and most important teachers of their children,
but might need help in understanding and us-
ing developmentally appropriate styles of in-
teracting and communication with their chil-
dren (e.g., Mahoney, Boyce, Fewell, Spiker,
& Wheeden, 1998).

6. Historically, evaluation efforts have been
categorized into two broad types of activity
(Scriven, 1967). Formative evaluation is in-
tended to provide staff with evaluation infor-
mation that could be used to help change or
improve the program. Usually formative eval-
uation occurs during the implementation phas-
es of a project and attempts to document
whether the practices designed to constitute
the program are indeed in place and whether
any initial effects in the hypothesized direc-
tion are evident. This information is then used
to improve the program and to bring it in line
with the originally proposed model. In some
2 JEI, 2001, 24:1
cases, this information actually might result in
changes in the model.
In contrast, summative evaluation is typi-
cally conducted at the end of a period of pro-
gram implementation. The purpose of sum-
mative evaluation is to determine whether the
program did, in fact, accomplish its aims. This
would include a focus on the practices in the
program (e.g., Did the program provide what
it said it would provide?) as well as on the
outcomes of the program (e.g., Were the goals
of the program achieved?).
Questions regarding program evaluation
may also be considered in the context of ac-

7. countability. Questions of accountability seek
to determine that for which programs and ser-
vice systems are responsible. Unlike a general
summative evaluation model that asks, "What
did this program accomplish?", accountability
asks, "Did this program accomplish the spe-
cific goals for which it was established?" In
this article, I focus on summative evaluation
questions couched in the context of program
accountability. I argue that early intervention
programs could be held accountable for three
things: (a) providing the legally required ser-
vices for families, (b) providing services that
are consistent with current philosophy about
recommended practices, and (c) achieving
certain outcomes as a result of working with
families. In describing and discussing these
three potential levels of accountability, I draw
parallels for each from prior efforts to evalu-
ate child care and early intervention programs.
The field has a great deal of experience in
documenting these levels of accountability in
the context of programs for children. Exam-
ining the types of approaches that have been
used at each level in evaluating child-focused
efforts might help clarify some of the issues
and approaches that will be needed in evalu-
ating family-centered services.
THREE LEVELS OF
ACCOUNTABILITY
Are We Providing the Services to
Which Families Are Legally Entitled?
The first question addresses the extent to
which early intervention and preschool pro-

8. grams provide the parent involvement and
family support activities for which they are
legally responsible. In child care, this would
be comparable to the basic licensing regula-
tions for any early childhood program. All
states have requirements for certain aspects of
child care such as adult-child ratios, square
footage per child, safety requirements for
playground equipment, and so forth. Although
a list of comparable specificity regarding fam-
ily support activities does not exist in most
states, the federally mandated components of
Part C and Part B of IDEA, as well as any
additionally legislated state requirements, pro-
vide the basis for determining these respon-
sibilities. A list of questions summarizing the
major legislative requirements for early inter-
vention and preschool programs is provided
in Table 1.
Evaluating legal accountability to families
assesses the extent to which early intervention
programs comply with state and federal rules
and regulations. This form of evaluation con-
stitutes a monitoring function. Although di-
mensions of quality could be assessed, at this
level evaluation focuses primarily on compli-
ance with explicitly required dimensions of
practice, such as the requirement that the In-
dividualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) be
completed within 45 days of referral or the
inclusion of all required domains on the IFSP.
This level of evaluation is essential, as fam-
ilies must be offered all of that to which they

9. are entitled. In some respects this is the sim-
plest of the three accountability questions, but
even here a number of challenges become ap-
parent. Assuring this level of accountability
requires a formal monitoring of practices by
state and federal agencies. IDEA and the ac-
companying federal regulations have in-
creased the expectation that states be able to
document full compliance with the require-
ments of the law.
Who will do the evaluation? The U.S. De-
partment of Education will provide one level
of evaluation at the state level through the
Continuous Improvement Monitoring Pro-
gram (CIMP; Office of Special Education
Programs, 2000). It is, however, each state's
responsibility to establish the policies and pro-
Bailey 3
Table 1.
Legal Accountability to Families: Federal Requirements for
Parent Involvement and Family Sup-
port Activities
A. Responsibilities of Part C programs serving infants and
toddlers
1. Were families a part of each IFSP team?
2. Did the early intervention program use family-directed
assessment of family resources, priorities, and
concerns?
3. Did all IFSPs contain, if the family so desired, procedures to

10. address both child and family needs?
4. Was a full explanation of each IFSP provided in the family's
native language and informed consent
obtained prior to the provision of early intervention services?
5. Were parents fully informed of their right to accept or
decline any early intervention services?
6. Were all specified procedural safeguards in place?
7. Was a service coordinator identified for each family who was
responsible for implementing the plan
and coordinating with other agencies and persons?
8. Was a review of the IFSP provided for each family at least
every 6 months?
9. Was written prior notice provided to parents before initiating
or changing any child's identification,
placement, or services?
B. Responsibilities of Part B programs serving 3- and 4-year-
olds
1. Was informed parent consent attained before evaluating or
reevaluating each child?
2. Were parents included as members of any group making
decisions regarding eligibility for services?
3. Were parents included as members of any group making
decisions about the placement of the child?
4. Were parents included as members of each IEP team?
5. Did parents agree to and sign all IEPs prior to the initiation
of services?
6. Did the school use simple, understandable terms in each
family's native language to describe family
rights?
7. Were parents given access to all records relating to their
children?

11. 8. Did the school provide an adequate set of procedural
safeguards for families, including due process
and a voluntary mediation process?
9. Was written prior notice provided to parents before initiating
or changing any child's identification,
placement, or services?
cedures by which these evaluations will occur
at the local level. In states where education is
not the lead agency for Part C, this could
mean a dual system of evaluation for Part C
and Part B services. Ideally, agencies would
work together to assure comparability of stan-
dards and guidelines for assessment.
How will compliance be assessed? Assess-
ment procedures and guidelines will need to
be developed. Under the CIMP program, the
Office of Special Education Programs has de-
veloped "cluster areas" in which indicators
are listed as ways to provide evidence for doc-
umenting that states are complying with fed-
eral legislation. States are expected to design
and implement an ongoing self-assessment
process. In many states, this might result in a
checklist for documenting whether or not the
practice or regulation has been implemented.
However, a simple checklist might not ade-
quately reflect practice, and gradients of im-
plementation might be necessary. For exam-
ple, a quantitative gradient could document
whether each regulation has been implement-
ed with all or only some families served by

12. the program. More challenging will be the ad-
dition of a qualitative gradient. Clearly there
will be different levels of quality in imple-
menting the requirements of the legislation.
Take, for example, the requirement of "full
explanation of the IFSP in the family's native
language and informed consent obtained." A
factual presentation of the IFSP might meet
the letter of the law, but documentation of
"full explanation" would also require some
determination of whether or not families ac-
tually understood the IFSP.
To complicate matters further, the CIMP
4 JEI, 2001, 24:1
process even includes evaluation criteria that
are related to, but not explicitly part of the
regulations listed in Table 1. For example,
component CF.l states that "Community out-
reach is provided in family-centered language,
locations, and formats," and CF.2 states that
"The needs of families with eligible infants
and toddlers are identified and addressed
through the family-centered orientation of pol-
icies, procedures, and practices." Although
some indicators of family-centered practices
are provided (e.g., services and support sys-
tems are flexible, accessible, comprehensive,
and responsive to diverse family-identified
needs), we see here a blurring of the lines be-
tween this level of accountability (for the
things to which families are legally entitled)

13. and the next level of accountability (for pro-
viding high quality services). This will un-
doubtedly cause some potential conflicts as
states and the federal government negotiate
required versus optional components of ser-
vice.
What will be the source of information?
Documenting legal accountability to families
will be a complex undertaking. It will likely
require gathering information from a number
of different sources, including a review of
documents, information from staff and super-
visors, and, ideally, input from families. Al-
though the regulations seem straightforward at
first glance and some can easily be docu-
mented from a records review (e.g., Have 6-
month reviews of IFSPs been conducted?),
parent perspectives on guidelines such as fam-
ily-directed assessments, being fully in-
formed, and being included as part of the team
will likely be important. Gathering informa-
tion effectively from families, however, will
require fully informing families of their rights
so that they can determine for themselves
whether they have received all required ser-
vices.
Are Parent Involvement and Family
Support Programs of High Quality?
The next level of accountability refers to our
obligation to provide parent involvement and
family support services that are of high qual-
ity and consistent with recommended practic-
es. In child care, a considerable amount of re-

14. search has been devoted to determining how
to measure quality, typically by using scales
to rate the quality of environments and inter-
actions (e.g., Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 1998),
describing the range of quality that currently
exists in child care, examining factors that ac-
count for variation in quality (e.g., education
of teachers, private versus public childcare),
and determining the relationship between
quality of care and outcomes for children
(e.g., Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes
Study Team, 1995). Generally this work has
shown that multiple dimensions of quality can
be measured, that considerable variation is ev-
ident in quality, and that quality makes a dif-
ference in developmental and behavioral out-
comes for children,
Much has been written about quality in the
ways we work with families, building on var-
ious theories, constructs, and practices such as
enablement, empowerment, help giving, par-
ticipatory service planning, open communi-
cation, collaborative goal setting, advocacy,
and support (e.g., Beckman, 1996; Dunst et
al., 1988; McWilliam, Winton, & Crais, 1996;
Turnbull & Turnbull, 1997). Federal and state
legislation provides the context in which these
practices might or might not be exhibited, but
the legislation does not mandate them.
A list of questions summarizing the major
components of high-quality services described
in the literature is provided in Table 2. Two
essential dimensions of quality are reflected.
The first dimension is the extent to which par-

15. ent involvement and family support services
are reflected in the overall philosophy and
model of services provided by the local pro-
gram. A family focus should be central to the
program and shared by all team members. Ide-
ally, families should have collaborated with
professionals in the development of such a
philosophy. Families should be viewed as
competent and legitimate participants in the
team, and interactions with families should
generally be of a positive nature. All team
members should recognize and respect the di-
versity evident in family resources, priorities,
and concerns, responding appropriately in ac-
cordance with this variability. A logical con-
Bailey 5
Table 2.
Are Early Intervention Programs Providing Parent Involvement
and Family Support Services of
High Quality?
A. Philosophy and program models
1. Was a family focus central to the program and shared by all
team members?
2. Were families invited to collaborate in the development of
the program philosophy?
3. Were families viewed as competent and legitimate
participants on each early intervention team?
4. Were interactions with families positive?
5. Did all team members respect and respond appropriately to
family diversity in beliefs, values, and

16. coping styles?
6. Were services flexible enough to meet individual family
needs?
B. Practices with families
1. Did professionals engage in well-documented help-giving
practices, such as active listening, clarifying
concerns and needs, and so forth?
2. Was family participation in decision-making processes
actively supported throughout all phases of
intake, evaluation, program planning, program implementation,
and program evaluation?
3. Were families actively supported in their efforts to serve as
agents of intervention in promoting the
child's acquisition of competencies?
4. Were families supported in their efforts to create and use
natural supports?
5. Were families supported and mentored in their efforts to
develop skills in advocating for themselves
and their children?
6. To the extent they desire, were families supported in their
efforts to assume primary responsibility for
service coordination?
sequence of this diversity is that services must
be flexible enough to meet individual family
needs.
The second dimension is the implementa-
tion of certain practices identified as important
to a family-centered approach. Professionals

17. should engage in well-documented help-giv-
ing practices, such as active listening, clari-
fying concerns, and so forth. Family partici-
pation in all aspects of decision making (e.g.,
intake, assessment, program planning, service
delivery) should be actively sought and en-
couraged. Families should have available to
them appropriate assistance to enable them to
provide developmentally appropriate and
stimulating environments for their children
and to access and use a range of formal and
informal support systems. Services should
help families develop skills in advocating for
themselves and in identifying and accessing
needed services.
As is evident in this list of factors, most of
the practices described as part of a family-
centered approach have to do with the nature
and quality of the relationship between par-
ents and professionals (Dinnebeil, Hale, &
Rule, 1996; Dunst, Johanson, Trivette, &
Hamby, 1991). For example, in a study of pro-
fessionals rated high on family-centered prac-
tices and some of the families those profes-
sionals served, McWilliam, Tocci, and Harbin
(1998) found five underlying components of
family-centered practice: positiveness, respon-
siveness, orientation to the whole family,
friendliness, and sensitivity.
Assessing the extent to which early inter-
vention and preschool programs provide qual-
ity services to families goes beyond monitor-
ing compliance with regulations. This level of

18. evaluation raises its own set of unique issues:
What do we mean by quality? Are there di-
mensions of quality on which we can all agree
as being essential? What specific indicators
should be used to document quality? How
would one validate a quality of family servic-
es scale? What about the subjective nature of
quality (i.e., quality as perceived by families
versus quality relative to some set of practices
or standards)? Do cultural variations exist in
assumptions about quality practices, and if so,
6 JEl 2001, 24:1
how can such variations be meaningfully in-
corporated in a quality assessment? Who
should be responsible for documenting quali-
ty?
It is in this area of accountability that the
most measurement work has been done thus
far. A number of groups and individuals have
developed or are in the process of developing
scales to rate various dimensions of quality of
family services. A brief description of several
of these measures is provided in Table 3. The
scales vary widely in terms of the number of
items and the organization of items into clus-
ters. All are ratings based on impressions and
experiences, rather than direct observation of
practice. Some include parents as respondents,
whereas others involve ratings by professional
staff. No single measure has been adopted by
the field as the standard for assessing quality,

19. and no studies have compared one scale with
another. Perhaps most important, only limited
research has addressed the relationship be-
tween quality and outcomes for children and
families, and the results to date have been
mixed. For example, Trivette, Dunst, Boyd,
and Hamby (1995) found that help-giving
practices by professionals in early interven-
tion programs were strongly related to par-
ents' reports of personal control. Mahoney
and Bella (1998), however, found that moth-
ers' ratings of the family-focused quality of
early intervention were not related to chil-
dren's developmental functioning, maternal
interaction styles, family functioning, or ma-
ternal stress.
Cultural variation in families complicates
issues regarding documentation of quality
practices. Although it is clear that certain fun-
damental aspects of practice (e.g., respect for
the individual family's values and priorities,
effective listening skills) generally transcend
cultural contexts in their importance, it is
equally clear that professional interactions
with families will need to vary in accordance
with cultural expectations and practices. Cre-
ating an evaluation system that considers this
important dimension of practice but also rec-
ognizes the tremendous variability and indi-
vidualization in the way these practices must
be implemented will be a considerable chal-
lenge.
Most professionals and family members

20. feel strongly that the provision of high-quality
services is a moral imperative for early inter-
vention. Yet the limited research in this area
suggests that high standards of quality often
are not being met, and numerous barriers
(training, lack of administrative support, lim-
ited resources) are often mentioned as imped-
iments to quality (Bailey, Buysse, Edmond-
son, & Smith, 1992). Thus a fundamental is-
sue is the extent to which early intervention
and preschool programs should be held ac-
countable for providing a higher quality of
family services.
Accountability for Family Outcomes
A third level of accountability addresses the
family outcomes of parent involvement and
family support programs. The focus here is on
the changes or benefits to families as a result
of such services. This differs fundamentally
from the first two levels of evaluation, both of
which seek to determine the extent to which
certain practices occur. Here we ask whether
these practices have any functional conse-
quences.
In the child care and early intervention lit-
erature, much effort has been focused on doc-
umenting outcomes of child care and early in-
tervention programs. Typical child outcomes
assessed in almost any study include devel-
opmental progress, school achievement, social
or behavioral outcomes, school placement,
and the need for special services. In the family
arena, however, this level of evaluation is
challenging because there is relatively little

21. consensus (or until recently even discussion)
in the field as to what might constitute a de-
sirable family outcome.
There have been a number of studies that
have described particular outcome domains
and have attempted to explore the relationship
between early intervention programs or prac-
tices and specific family outcomes, often de-
pending upon the philosophy and assumptions
underlying the program being tested. For ex-
ample, studies have investigated the extent to
which various parent training programs have
Bailey 7
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JEI, 2001, 24:1
been able to influence interactions between
parents and their child with a disability
(McCollum & Hemmeter, 1997). Other efforts
have suggested that early intervention can
help families build stronger formal and social
support systems (Shonkoff, Hauser-Cram,
Kraus, & Upshur, 1992) or help empower
families (Trivette et al., 1995). Recent re-
search by Thompson et al. (1997) suggested

31. that there might be multiple pathways by
which these outcomes are achieved, but the
fact remains that attaining family outcomes
through early intervention is indeed possible.
In several recent efforts, researchers have
attempted to think more broadly about the ar-
ray of possible family outcomes in early in-
tervention and have suggested frameworks
around which such an evaluation might be de-
veloped. A summary of these recommenda-
tions is provided in Table 4. Each group has
chosen to describe potential family outcomes
in a different way, but there is considerable
overlap across the four models. The three
most common domains of potential family
outcomes of parent involvement and family
support efforts are: (a) family satisfaction with
services, (b) the family's knowledge of child
development and their ability to provide a de-
velopmentally supportive environment and
advocate for their child's needs, and (c) the
overall quality of the family's life and the
changes that are needed in order to meet their
child's needs.
A fundamental issue is whether we really
want or expect to be held accountable for
achieving outcomes for families beyond the
traditional satisfaction with services. This area
is fraught with conceptual, methodological,
and resource challenges. One could argue that
high-quality interactions with families that
fulfill all of the state and federal requirements
for early intervention and preschool programs
are worthwhile and should be provided on the

32. basis of their inherent merit. In an era of out-
comes-based assessment, however, there
might come a day when the field is asked to
show whether family-centered practices have
actually made any difference.
The evaluation of family outcomes will re-
quire some consensus on what those outcomes
should be. The four models described in Table
4 each conceptualize family outcomes in dif-
ferent ways, but there are no fundamental in-
consistencies among them, rather just varying
areas of emphasis. Perhaps the field should try
to identify one or two core outcomes on which
everyone can agree and for which we think
there is consensus that, in fact, early interven-
tion should and can result in those outcomes.
A range of strategies then should be devel-
oped to assess those outcomes and studies
conducted to determine the extent to which
they have been achieved. Current efforts by
the Early Childhood Research Institute on
Measuring Growth and Development (1998),
as well as the National Early Intervention
Longitudinal Study (a nationally representa-
tive study of characteristics, services, and out-
comes of early intervention programs funded
by the Office of Special Education Programs
and led by SRI International) should provide
important information in this regard.
Of course, identifying common outcomes in
some ways is contrary to the spirit of a fam-
ily-centered approach, which argues for indi-
vidualization of services based on each fam-

33. ily's resources, priorities, and concerns. This
perspective would suggest that the full range
of family outcomes described above might not
be equally applicable across all families, and
thus assessing the extent to which they are
achieved in early intervention might tell us
very little unless we know whether families
wanted or needed those outcomes. My own
perspective is that it is still reasonable to ask
if early intervention as a national endeavor
has, for example, provided services that fam-
ilies consider satisfactory or has enabled fam-
ilies to feel more confident in their ability to
support their child's development and to ac-
cess needed formal and informal support sys-
tems. If we cannot demonstrate these out-
comes for the system as a whole, then we
probably need to reexamine the assumptions
and practices underlying the system.
CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
In this article I have addressed issues and con-
siderations in evaluating parent involvement
Bailey 9
Table 4.
Examples of Suggested Family Outcomes
Source Suggested Family Outcomes or Domains
Bailey et al. (1998)

34. Early Childhood Research Institute
on Measuring Growth and De-
velopment (1998)
Roberts, Innocenti, & Goetz
(1999)
Turnbull, Turbiville, & Turnbull
(2000)
Family perceptions of the early intervention (EI) experience
1. Does the family see EI as appropriate in making a difference
in their child's life?
2. Does the family see EI as appropriate in making a difference
in the family's life?
3. Does the family have a positive view of professionals and the
special service system?
Family impact
1. Did EI enable the family to help their child grow, learn, and
develop?
2. Did EI enhance the family's perceived ability to work with
professionals and advocate for services?
3. Did EI assist the family in building a strong support system?
4. Did EI help enhance an optimistic view of the future?
5. Did EI enhance the family's perceived quality of life?
1. Families will have a basic understanding of child
development
and will be able to identify needs for their child, including

35. those related to cultural, linguistic, or disability specific issues.
2. Families will be able to assess how their child's development
is
progressing related to general outcomes identified on the IEP
or IFSR
3. Families will be confident in their abilities to make choices
about
interventions for their child and will be able to implement
those interventions effectively.
4. Families will feel that their beliefs and values are respected
by
other members of their child's team and will see themselves as
equal and integral members.
1. Service-related outcomes (e.g., whether families received
desired
services, the level of difficulty in obtaining services, level of
parents' influence over decisions)
2. Satisfaction outcomes (e.g., satisfaction with services,
families'
feelings of competence)
3. Quality of life outcomes (e.g., family participation in
community
activities, successful accommodations to family and communi-
ty challenges)
1. Motivation outcomes (e.g., perceived self-efficacy, perceived
control, hope, energy, persistence)
2. Knowledge or skill outcomes (e.g., information, problem-
solving,

36. coping skills, communication skills)
and family support programs in the context of
early intervention. I have suggested that this
evaluation could occur at three levels: (a) the
extent to which programs meet federal and
state standards for working with families, (b)
the extent to which programs provide services
that go beyond the required standards to pro-
vide services widely acknowledged as consti-
tuting high quality, and (c) the extent to which
families realize selected outcomes as a result
of parent involvement and family support pro-
grams.
T h e first level of evaluation is essential and
states must develop strategies for assuring the
provision of minimal requirements for servic-
es. It will be difficult, however, to avoid issues
10 JEI, 2001, 24:1
of quality at this level, and thus it will almost
be inevitable that some aspects of Level-2
evaluations (of program quality) will be con-
ducted in almost every state. This work could
be conducted in the context of broader efforts
to determine quality in all aspects of early in-
tervention, not just those aspects associated
with working with families (Aytch, Cryer,
Bailey, & Selz, 1999). Level-3 evaluations
(documenting family outcomes) are contro-
versial, but must be addressed. Without a clear

37. statement of desired outcomes, efforts to doc-
ument quality become less compelling, be-
cause what we mean by quality might vary
depending upon the outcome that is to be
achieved.
What will be necessary to help states and
local programs move toward a more system-
atic evaluation of parent involvement and
family support programs? At least five activ-
ities seem important:
Develop Partnerships Between Parents
and Professionals to Address Issues
Related to Program Evaluation
Families have an inherent interest in each lev-
el of evaluation and would be directly affected
as participants in the evaluation, as well as by
the results of the evaluation. Parents need to
be involved as key participants in discussions
about and implementation of program evalu-
ation efforts. Care will need to be taken to
assure that the parents who participate in these
activities reflect and can speak for the diver-
sity of families currently participating in early
intervention programs. In addition, parent per-
spectives on issues related to evaluation meth-
ods, goals, and findings should be solicited us-
ing a variety of methods such as surveys, in-
terviews, and focus groups.
Develop and Evaluate Assessment
Instruments and Procedures
Although considerable effort has been direct-
ed in recent years towards measurement issues
regarding quality of family services and doc-

38. umentation of family outcomes, much work
remains to be done. States are now embarking
on quality assurance initiatives of varying de-
grees of complexity and comprehensiveness.
Although there is something to be said for a
number of groups working on the same task,
some coordination of these efforts would be
useful. Measurement issues such as reliability
and validity will need to be addressed, with
particular attention paid, however, to the
unique reliability and validity issues associ-
ated with assessment of family practices and
outcomes (Henderson, Aydlett, & Bailey,
1993).
Develop, Implement, and Evaluate
Models of Technical Assistance to Aid
State and Local Programs in
Developing Evaluation and Program
Improvement Efforts
Evaluation ideally should be conducted in the
context of program improvement initiatives. It
is, of course, at the local program level that
parent involvement and family support activ-
ities are provided. Local programs will look
more favorably upon evaluation efforts if they
feel that they can ultimately improve what
they are doing in a positive manner. Some
models for program improvement have been
described (e.g., Bailey, McWilliam, & Win-
ton, 1992; Olson, Murphy, & Olson, 1998;
Snyder & McWilliam, 1999; Summers,
McMann, & Fuger, 1997), and states have be-
gun to tackle this issue from a number of per-
spectives (McWilliam et al., 1996; Roberts,

39. Innocenti, & Goetze, 1999). These models are
only sporadically available, however, and a
more systematic framework for evaluation and
local support for improvement of practices
will be necessary.
Convene a National Forum on Family
Outcomes
Enough conceptual work has now been done
on family outcomes to warrant convening a
national forum to reach some consensus on
what, indeed, should be expected of early in-
tervention. This forum, which should include
parents, practitioners, policy makers, and re-
searchers, should address the diversity of is-
sues inherent in assessing family outcomes
and make some recommendations to the field
for a core set of outcomes that could be stud-
ied more systematically.
Bailey 11
Conduct Research to Describe the
National Status of Parent Involvement
and Family Support Programs, and the
Costs, Quality, and Outcomes of Such
Programs
We know very little from a national perspec-
tive about the real nature and distribution of
parent involvement and family support pro-
grams. Efforts such as the ongoing National
Early Intervention Longitudinal Study will
provide some important information in this re-
gard, but more work is needed to understand

40. the variability in program models and practic-
es, and factors contributing to that variability.
Barriers to the full implementation of what the
field considers are high quality practices need
to be identified and strategies for overcoming
those barriers need to be developed and tested.
Ultimately research is needed in which the
provision of key aspects of parent involve-
ment and family support programs is linked
with outcomes, to determine the extent to
which our espoused practices are resulting in
the outcomes that families desire.
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Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center,
CB# 8180, University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-8180.
Email: [email protected]
14 JEI, 2001, 24:1

48. mailto:[email protected]
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49. Copyright ©1999. All Rights Reserved.
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Family–School Connectedness and
Children’s Early Social Developmentsode_623 21..46
Zewelanji N. Serpell, Virginia State University and
Andrew J. Mashburn, University of Virginia
Abstract
This study examined the extent to which teacher ratings of the
frequency of parent–
teacher contacts and quality of parent–teacher relationships in
prekindergarten were
associated with teachers’ perceptions of the quality of their
relationship with children
and children’s social development. Participants were a diverse
sample of 2966 four-

50. year-olds who attended publicly funded prekindergarten
programs in the USA. Results
indicated that after controlling for child and family
characteristics, the perceived
quality of the parent–teacher relationship during
prekindergarten was associated with
prekindergarten teachers’ ratings of children’s social
development during prekinder-
garten and kindergarten teachers’ ratings at the beginning of
kindergarten. Further-
more, the association between quality of the parent–teacher
relationship and
reductions in problem behavior was stronger among children
who experienced social/
economic risks.
Keywords: social competence; parent–teacher relations;
preschool; at-risk youth
Introduction
The promotion of children’s social and behavioral competence
is arguably one of the
most important outcomes of early childhood education. Social
and behavioral compe-
tencies in preschool are strong predictors of school readiness
and adjustment (Rimm-
Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000), and the quality of the
relationships children form with
their preschool teachers has significant concurrent (Garner &
Waajid, 2008; Mashburn
et al., 2008) and long-term consequences for children’s
outcomes (Hamre & Pianta,
2003; O’Connor & McCartney, 2007; Peisner-Feinberg et al.,
2001).

51. Young children’s development of social and behavioral
competencies is contingent
upon multiple ecological inputs. Particularly important are the
inputs emanating from
the social interactions that children experience at home and at
school (Mashburn &
The research reported herein was supported by the Institute of
Education Sciences, U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, through the National Center for Research on
Early Childhood Education,
Grant R305A060021 to the University of Virginia. The opinions
expressed are those of the authors
and do not represent views of the U.S. Department of
Education.
Correspondence should be addressed to Zewelanji Serpell,
Department of Psychology, Virginia
State University, 1 Hayden Drive, P.O. Box 9079, Petersburg,
VA 23806, USA. Email: [email protected]
vsu.edu
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2011.00623.x
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011. Published by Blackwell
Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and
350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Pianta, 2010; O’Connor & McCartney, 2007). It is also widely
accepted that the
acquisition of school-related skills is uniquely influenced by the
point of intersection
between these two ecologies (Bronfenbrenner, 1994; Epstein,
2001). Frequently

52. defined as family–school connectedness, this intersection
between the family and the
school can facilitate valuable communication and socialization
practices that promote
children’s school success (Downer & Myers, 2009; Epstein,
2001).
Recently in the USA, the federal government and most states
have invested in
publicly funded prekindergarten (pre-k) programs that are
designed to provide oppor-
tunities for four-year-olds to develop school readiness skills
prior to entry into kinder-
garten. The growth and expansion of pre-k continue to be
spurred by developmental
research, particularly new discoveries about cognition and brain
development suggest-
ing greater brain plasticity before the age of five, and a strong
base of evidence
showing that pre-k programs produce demonstrable gains in the
social, emotional,
behavioral, and cognitive attributes that characterize school
readiness (e.g., Barnett &
Masse, 2007; Reynolds, Temple, Robertson, & Mann, 2001).
The value of pre-k is well
established; however, an important caveat is that the quality of
children’s experiences
in pre-k is critical to ensure positive child outcomes (e.g.,
Mashburn & Pianta, 2010).
Strong family–school connections are a hallmark of quality pre-
k programs in the USA
(NAEYC, 2002).
Although family–school connections are posited to play a
central role in children’s
early development, the body of empirical studies examining this

53. association in pre-k is
limited. Furthermore, much of the research has focused on the
degree to which parents
are involved with school (i.e., quantity or frequency of contacts
or events attended)
rather than on the quality of parents’ relationships with teachers
(Adams & Christen-
son, 2000). The current study contributes to the existing
literature by examining two
facets of family–school connections in pre-k—the frequency of
parent–teacher con-
tacts and the quality of parent–teacher relationships—and their
associations with
children’s development of social competencies in pre-k and in
kindergarten. In addi-
tion, the study examines the extent to which the quality of the
parent–teacher relation-
ship has stronger associations with the development of social
outcomes for children
who experience greater levels of social and economic risk.
Why Family–School Connections Should Matter
The case for family–school connections playing a significant
role in children’s early
social development is theoretically strong. A number of
theorists (e.g., Bronfenbrenner,
1994; Harkness & Super, 1996; Sameroff, 1975) suggest that
child development is best
conceived in terms of a set of interdependent systems that
simultaneously exert their
influence on children. Particularly relevant in the current study
are mesosystem pro-
cesses or the interrelations between a child’s most proximal
socializing contexts—
family and school. These interrelations are defined by two

54. dimensions; the first
involves establishing a system of communication that links
families and schools
(amount or frequency of family–school contacts), and the
second concerns the nego-
tiation or interpersonal interactions (parent–teacher
relationship) required to create a
shared understanding of how each party contributes to a child’s
development (Downer
& Myers, 2009). Although there are bidirectional influences
between the frequency of
contact between parents and teachers and the quality of the
relationship they share
(Nzinga-Johnson, Baker, & Aupperlee, 2009), the relationship is
not simply the sum of
these contacts (Downer & Myers, 2009).
22 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
The frequency dimension of family–school connections is often
mandated at the
macrosystem level through educational policies requiring that
schools create opportu-
nities for parents and teachers to interact (Serpell, 1997).
Whereas the quality dimen-
sion, is negotiated at the mesosystemic level within a parent–
teacher relationship that
encompasses affective qualities such as interpersonal trust,
feelings of support, and
mutual respect (Adams & Christenson, 2000; Vickers & Minke,
1995). Frequent and

55. high-quality family–school connections can facilitate children’s
development by pro-
viding opportunities for a bidirectional exchange of information
about a child that
helps align parents’ and teachers’ goals (Epstein, 2001). Within
family–school con-
nections, the parent–teacher relationship-quality dimension
appears to be particularly
important for facilitating meaningful information exchanges and
parental involvement
in school. While a quality of parent–teacher relationship likely
facilitates more parent
involvement, it can also influence children’s perception of the
importance of school
and can enhance their engagement with school (Grolnick &
Slowiaczek, 1994; Hughes
& Kwok, 2007). Conversely, children’s perception that the
parent–teacher relationship
is weak or that parents and teachers have differing expectations
and goals may exac-
erbate any existing school-adjustment problems or may create
new ones (Hoover-
Dempsey & Sandler, 1995).
Family–School Connections and Children’s Social Outcomes
The association between family–school connections and
children’s outcomes in pre-k
is largely extrapolated from a number of studies examining
these connections at the
elementary-school level. This literature generally shows that
more parent–teacher
contacts and parent participation in school activities yield
improved social and aca-
demic outcomes (see Seginer, 2006 for a review). However, this
literature is replete

56. with definitional ambiguities, methodological inconsistencies,
and selection issues that
may compromise these conclusions (Fan & Chen, 2001). An
additional issue is that
many studies rely on teacher ratings for both parental
involvement and children’s
outcomes. As such, measures of involvement represent teachers’
perceptions, and these
are not necessarily congruent with more objective indices of
involvement (Waanders,
Mendez, & Downer, 2007).
Teachers’ perceptions about children and parents—in and of
themselves—can affect
children’s development and well-being. The influence of
teachers’ perceptions on
children’s outcomes has a long history in educational research,
and more positive
perceptions may influence the amount of time the teacher
spends with the child in the
classroom, the quality of interactions between the teacher and
the child, and the
likelihood that the teacher labels the child as having behavioral
problems. Further,
there is an emerging literature demonstrating that teachers’
perceptions about parents
are associated with their attitudes about and behaviors toward
parents. For example,
teachers’ perceptions of a high-quality of parent–teacher
relationship predict parents’
school-based involvement (Nzinga-Johnson, Baker, &
Aupperlee, 2009), and teacher
perceptions of parents’ attitudes toward school are strong
predictors of children’s early
school outcomes (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, Cox, & Bradley,
2003).

57. Although few in number, studies of family–school connections
in pre-k show positive
associations with young children’s acquisition of academic and
social skills (Arnold,
Zeljo, Doctoroff, & Ortiz, 2008; McWayne, Hampton, Fantuzzo,
Cohen & Sekino,
2004; Fantuzzo, McWayne, Perry, & Childs, 2004; Waanders et
al., 2007). For example,
Reynolds (1992) reported that frequent family–school contacts
were associated with
Family–School Connections in Pre-k 23
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
better classroom behavior, and that high levels of parents’
school-based involvement
were associated with significantly increased adaptive-learning
behaviors and lower
levels of classroom-behavior problems. There is also some
indication that these benefits
may extend beyond pre-k (Taylor & Machida, 1994). It is
important to note that more
frequent parent–teacher contacts may also be negatively related
to children’s social
outcomes because the frequency of these interactions may be
motivated by students’
problem behavior (Deslandes & Bertrand, 2005).
Empirical studies examining a potential association between the
quality of parent–
teacher relationships and children’s social/behavioral outcomes

58. are scant. Existing
studies at the elementary-school level suggest that the parent–
teacher relationship is a
stronger predictor of children’s social adjustment and
achievement than is the fre-
quency of family–school contacts (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, Cox,
& Bradley, 2003). To
our knowledge, only two studies have examined a facet of
parent–teacher relationship
quality in pre-k: Waanders et al. (2007) and Arnold et al.
(2008). However, both studies
examine quality as the connection and ease of parent–teacher
communication and not
as encompassing affective qualities such as trust or emotional
tone. Further, neither
study examined the association between parent–teacher
relationship quality and chil-
dren’s development of social skills and positive relationships
with their teachers.
Family Factors Related to Family–School Connections
Families with social risks frequently have fewer financial and
social resources as well
as reduced time to invest in their children’s education (Garcia-
Coll et al., 1996), which
may constrain the number of contacts between parents and
teachers. Indeed, research-
ers have documented low levels of family–school connections
among families of low
income and/or racial/ethnic minority status (Nzinga-Johnson et
al., 2009; Waanders
et al., 2007). Other proxies for socioeconomic status, such as
low levels of parental
education and single parenthood, have also shown to affect
adversely the number of

59. family–school contacts (Arnold et al., 2008; Kohl, Lengua, &
McMahon, 2000). One
study surprisingly indicates that family factors do not appear to
predict the frequency
of family–school contacts in preschool and kindergarten (Rimm-
Kaufman & Pianta,
2005). However, other studies show that the relationships
between family factors and
homeschool communications may be more nuanced. For
example, mothers who work
part-time have higher levels of involvement than those who
work full-time. However,
unemployed mothers not currently looking for work have the
lowest levels of involve-
ment (Weiss et al., 2003).
In addition to having fewer contacts with teachers, parents who
are culturally or
socioeconomically different from their children’s teachers may
also experience sub-
optimal and strained relationships with teachers (Waanders et
al., 2007), marked by
low levels of cooperation and trust (see Boethel, 2003 for a
review). In early childhood,
poor parent–teacher relationships in families with social risks
may be attributable to
differences in child-rearing beliefs, communication styles, and
expectations regarding
children’s behavior (Churchill, 2003; Harkness & Super, 1996).
English language
proficiency is also an important determinant of school-based
involvement among
language minority and immigrant populations (Wong & Hughes,
2006).
Quality parent–teacher relationships may be an important

60. mechanism through
which to promote inter-setting consistency and thereby improve
developmental out-
comes for at-risk children (Downer & Myers, 2009; Hill, 2001).
Young children who
enter preschool with social risks may also benefit
disproportionately from positive
24 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
experiences in pre-k. This notion is supported by evidence
showing that race moderates
the association between quality teacher–child relationships and
children’s outcomes.
For example, Meehan, Hughes, and Cavell (2003) found that
positive teacher–child
relationships had a greater impact on the outcomes of
aggressive African-American
and Hispanic children than they did for White children. It is
therefore conceivable that
high-quality of parent–teacher relationships may have stronger
positive associations
with the development of social outcomes among at-risk
preschoolers than among those
without social and economic risks.
The Current Study
The current study asks two primary research questions. The first
question asks: To what
extent are family–school connections during pre-k (quality of

61. parent–teacher relation-
ships and parent–teacher contacts) associated with children’s
social development? This
question is examined using four sets of outcomes: pre-k
teachers’ perceptions of
children’s social competence and problem behaviors; pre-k
teachers’ perceptions of
the degree of closeness and conflict in their relationships with
children; kindergarten
teachers’ perceptions of children’s social competence and
problem behaviors; and
kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of the degree of closeness
and conflict in their
relationships with children. The second research question asks:
To what extent are the
associations between family–school connections and children’s
development of social
outcomes moderated by child and family characteristics (sex,
primary home language,
race/ethnicity, family income, and maternal education)?
Methods
Participants
Participants come from two large-scale studies of state-funded
pre-k programs: the
National Center for Early Development and Learning’s
(NCEDL) Multi-State Study of
Pre-Kindergarten (Multi-State Study), and the NCEDL–National
Institute for Early
Education Research State-Wide Early Education Programs
Study (SWEEP Study).
The Multi-State Study included a stratified random sample of 40
state-funded pre-k
programs within each of the six states (GA, IL, KY, OH, and

62. two large regions in CA
and NY) during 2001–2002, and from each program, one pre-k
classroom was ran-
domly selected to participate for a total of 240 classrooms. The
SWEEP Study involved
a stratified random sample of 100 state-funded pre-k programs
within each of the five
states (MA, NJ, TX, WA, and WI) during 2003–2004, and from
each program, one
pre-k classroom was randomly selected to participate for a total
of 500 classrooms. The
11 states in these two studies served approximately 80 percent
of children in the USA
who attended state pre-k programs at the time the studies were
conducted.
In each participating classroom, the teacher was told that the
researchers were
interested in learning more about what was happening in pre-k
programs. The teacher
was encouraged to send out a study information packet home
with each child at the
beginning of the year that contained a cover letter (stating that
the researchers were
interested in learning about pre-k programs), a family contact
sheet, a demographic
questionnaire, and a parental consent form. The average rate of
parental consent for
children in the Multi-State Study and SWEEP Study was 61
percent and 55 percent,
respectively. Children were identified as eligible to participate
if they (1) had parental
Family–School Connections in Pre-k 25
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,

63. 2012
consent, (2) met the age criteria for kindergarten eligibility
during the following year,
(3) according to the teacher, did not have an individualized
education plan, and (4)
according to the teacher, spoke English or Spanish well enough
to understand simple
instructions. The group of eligible children was stratified by
gender, and in each class,
whenever possible, two boys and two girls were randomly
selected. The resulting
sample included 2966 children from 704 pre-k classrooms
within 11 states. Table 1
Table 1. Child Characteristics, Family Characteristics, Parent–
Teacher Relation-
ship and Teacher Ratings of Child Competencies
N % Missing Mean SD Range
Child characteristics
Gender 0
Boy 1459 49
Girl 1507 51
English is the first language 43
No 664 23
Yes 2259 77
Race 68
African-American 533 18
Latino 764 26

64. White 1200 41
Other race 401 14
Family characteristics
Family income 216
Poor 1605 58
Not poor 1145 42
Mother’s education (years) 81 12.6 2.41 8–20
Teacher–parent relationship
Quality 322 3.55 .51 1–4
Phone contact 343 2.42 .88 1–5
Voluntary contact 337 1.94 .67 1–5
Parent–teacher conference 355 2.07 .45 1–5
PK teacher ratings
Social competence—fall 397 3.47 .77 1–5
Social competence—spring 322 3.64 .77 1–5
Problem behavior—fall 395 1.51 .53 1–5
Problem behavior—spring 328 1.50 .54 1–5
Teacher–child closeness—spring 318 4.38 .63 1–5
Teacher–child conflict—spring 318 1.61 .73 1–5
KG teacher ratings (N = 1939)
Social competence—fall 3.54 .77 1–5
Problem behavior—fall 1.58 .62 1–5
Teacher–child closeness—fall 4.33 .61 1–5
Teacher–child conflict—fall 1.57 .70 1–5
Notes: KG = kindergarten; PK = prekindergarten.
26 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,

65. 2012
provides the demographic composition of children in this study.
The sample repre-
sented both genders nearly equally (49 percent boys and 51
percent girls), and approxi-
mately one quarter (23 percent) of the children did not speak
English as their primary
language. The sample was ethnically and racially diverse: 41
percent of children were
White, 18 percent were African-American, 26 percent were
Latino, and 14 percent
were other race. Over half of the children (58 percent) were
from families that were
categorized as poor, designated as such if their family’s total
income fell below 150
percent of the federal poverty threshold based on family size.
The average number of
years of maternal education was 12.6 years (SD = 2.4 years).
In the analysis examining associations between parent–teacher
relationships and
children’s social outcomes during pre-k, we used the entire
sample of 2966 children.
In the analysis examining these outcomes at kindergarten entry,
the subsample of 1939
children for whom kindergarten teachers completed assessments
for the outcomes of
interest was included. Attrition bias analyses were conducted to
compare the demo-
graphic characteristics, the social outcomes at the beginning of
pre-k, and the family–
school connectedness of 1939 children included in the
kindergarten analysis, with the

66. 1027 children who were excluded due to missing teachers’
reports of these outcomes.
There were no statistically significant differences between the
children who were
excluded and retained from the kindergarten analysis with
regard to gender (c2 = 2.84,
p = .09), frequency of parent phone contacts (t = -1.36, p = .18),
parent voluntary
contacts (t = -1.82, p = .07), or parent–teacher conferences (t =
1.39, p = .17). However,
children excluded from the analysis were less likely to speak
English as a first language
(c2 = 27.3, p = .00), more likely to identify as Latino and other
(c2 = 36.5, p = .00),
more likely to come from families categorized as poor (c2 =
87.7, p = .00), had mothers
with, on average, fewer years of education (t = -5.83, p = .00),
had lower social
competence (t = -2.68, p = .00) and greater problem behaviors
at pre-k entry (t = 2.57,
p = .00), and had higher quality of parent–teacher relationships
(t = 2.81, p = .00).
Measures
Child and Family Characteristics. These data were provided by
parents/primary car-
egivers on the demographic questionnaire completed at the start
of the pre-k year.
Demographic characteristics included in this study were gender
(boy is the reference
group), English is the child’s first language (‘no’ is the
reference group), race/ethnicity
(White is the reference group), whether the family is poor (‘not
poor’ is the reference
group), and years of maternal education.

67. Family–School Connectedness. Two dimensions of family–
school connections were
assessed: the quality of the relationship between parents and
teachers, and the fre-
quency of different types of contact between parents and
teachers. Relationship quality
was assessed in the spring of the pre-k year using teacher
ratings on the home–school
relationships questionnaire (Barbarin, 2000), a 7-item scale that
assesses the quality of
the relationship that the teacher has with each study child’s
parent related to satisfac-
tion, emotional tone, level of trust, clarity of communication,
agreement, parent appre-
ciation, and parent support and cooperation. Teachers responded
to each item along a
4-point Likert scale with anchors that are relevant for the
question. For example, the
level of trust item was worded as follows: ‘How would you
describe the degree of trust
between you and this child’s parents?’ (1 = a great deal of trust
between us; 2 = a little
trust—it is okay; 3 = a little suspicion and mistrust; and 4 =
much suspicion and no
Family–School Connections in Pre-k 27
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
trust between us). For each item, higher scores represented a
lower quality relationship;
however, to aid in the interpretation, scores were reverse coded

68. such that higher scores
indicate a better quality relationship. The mean of the seven
items was computed and
used to represent teachers’ reports of the overall quality of the
parent–teacher rela-
tionship. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) for the scale
was .92, and on average,
teachers reported positive relationships with parents (M = 3.55,
SD = .51, range = 1–4).
The frequency of different types of contact that teachers’ had
with parents was
assessed in the spring via teacher ratings on six items. Using a
4-point Likert scale with
anchors (1 = never, 2 = once or twice a year, 3 = almost every
month, 4 = almost every
week, and 5 = more than once per week), teachers’ reported the
frequency of the
following types of contacts: parent called teacher, teacher called
parent, parent
attended group function, parent attended a special event, parent
attended parent–
teacher conference, and parent volunteered. These items were
subjected to an explor-
atory factor analysis, and three dimensions of the frequency of
parent–teacher contacts
were identified. The first subscale assessed the frequency of
phone contacts, and it
included the frequency of the parent calling the teacher and the
teacher calling the
parent; the internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) was .73, and
the mean for the
subscale was 2.42 (SD = .88). The second subscale assessed the
frequency of voluntary
contacts, and it included the frequency that the parent attended
a non-mandatory event

69. including a group function, a special event, and volunteered; the
internal consistency
(Cronbach’s alpha) was .75, and the mean for the subscale was
1.94 (SD = .67). The
third subscale assessed the frequency of parent–teacher
conferences. This subscale
comprises a single item with a mean of 2.07 (SD = .45).
Social Skills. In the fall and spring of pre-k and the fall of
kindergarten, the child’s
teacher completed the teacher–child rating scale (Hightower et
al., 1986), a behavioral
rating scale designed to assess two dimensions of children’s
social–emotional adjust-
ment in preschool through third grade: social competence and
problem behaviors. An
evaluation of its normative and psychometric characteristics is
reported by Weissberg
et al. (1987). Examples of items that assess social competence
include ‘participation in
class discussions’ and ‘well liked by classmates’, and teachers
used a 5-point scale
(1 = not at all, 3 = moderately well, and 5 = very well) to
indicate how well each statement
described the child. The social competence scale was computed
as the mean of 20 items
and achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of .95, and in general, teachers
reported high levels of
social competence. Examples of items that assess behavior
problems include ‘disruptive
in class’ and ‘difficulty in following directions’. Teachers used
a 5-point scale (1 = not a
problem, 3 = moderate, and 5 = very serious problem) to
indicate how well each
statement described the child. The problem behaviors scale was
computed as the mean

70. of 18 items and achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of .92, and in
general, teachers reported low
levels of problem behaviors (see Table 1 for descriptive
statistics).
Teacher–Child Relationships. In the spring of pre-k and fall of
kindergarten, teachers
reported the quality of their relationship with each study child
using the student–
teacher relationship scale (STRS; Pianta, 2001). The STRS is a
widely used measure
of teachers’ perceptions of their relationships with students and
has shown validity
with regard to predicting academic and social functioning in
pre-k (Hamre & Pianta,
2003). This scale yields scores that assess the degree of
closeness and conflict in the
relationship between the teacher and the child. Examples of
closeness items are: ‘I
share an affectionate, warm relationship with this child’, and
‘The child values his/her
28 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
relationship with me’. Examples of conflict items are: ‘The
child and I always seem to
be struggling with each other’, and ‘The child easily becomes
angry at me’. Scores
range from 1 to 5, and responses have the following anchors: 1
= definitely does not
apply, 2 = not really, 3 = neutral, not sure, 4 = applies

71. somewhat, and 5 = definitely
applies. The closeness scale was computed as the mean of seven
items and achieved a
Cronbach’s alpha of .86. The conflict scale was computed as the
mean of eight items
and achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of .89. Teachers, on average,
rated their relationships
with study children as close and with relatively low levels of
conflict (see Table 1 for
descriptive statistics).
Table 2 presents bivariate correlations among child
characteristics, family charac-
teristics, and teachers’ reports of parent–teacher relationships;
and Table 3 presents
bivariate correlations between teachers’ reports of parent–
teacher relationships and
children’s social outcomes at the beginning of pre-k, end of pre-
k, and beginning of
kindergarten.
Analyses
This study involves a nested design in which four children were
included within each
participating pre-k classroom. Given the multilevel nature of the
data in which multiple
children (level 1) are nested within classrooms (level 2),
hierarchical linear modeling
(Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) was used to examine (1) the extent
to which family–
school connections in pre-k were associated with children’s
social outcomes during
pre-k and at kindergarten entry, and (2) the extent to which
these associations were
moderated by child and family characteristics (skills at pre-k

72. entry, gender, race,
whether English was the child’s first language, poverty status,
and maternal education).
Equation 1 specifies the models that examine the associations
between the measures
of family–school connections (relationship quality, frequency of
phone contacts, fre-
quency of parents attending voluntary functions, and frequency
of parents attending
parent–teacher conferences) and children’s social outcomes
(social competence,
problem behaviors, teacher–child closeness, and teacher–child
conflict) during pre-k
and at the beginning of kindergarten. The equation specifies
that each outcome (Y) for
a child (i) who is in pre-k classroom (j) is a function of the
intercept [the estimated
mean score for children in that classroom (B00)] after adjusting
for the following level
1 characteristics: teachers’ ratings in the fall of pre-k (B01),
child and family demo-
graphic characteristics (B02-B08), quality of the parent–teacher
relationship (B09), each
of the three measures of the frequency of contacts between the
parent and the teacher—
phone contacts (B10), voluntary contacts (B11), parent–teacher
conferences (B12)—and
the error terms associated with within-class variability (rij) and
between-class variabil-
ity (u0j) in the outcomes. Given that assessments of teacher–
child closeness and conflict
were not conducted during fall of pre-k, we computed a fall
pretest measure for these
outcomes that combined teachers’ reports of the child’s social
competence and

73. problem behaviors at the beginning of the pre-k year. Prior to
computing this pretest
measure, we reverse scored problem behaviors so that higher
scores on the resulting
measure reflected more positive social skills in fall.
Each of these four indicators of family–school connectedness
was group-mean
centered, such that children’s score was computed as the
deviation from the average
rating that the teachers assigned to other students in their
classroom for whom they
completed this measure (approximately four students per
classroom). This method
of centering these variables represents a teachers’ perceptions
of family–school
Family–School Connections in Pre-k 29
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
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30 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
T
ab
le
3.

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1.
Family–School Connections in Pre-k 31
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
connectedness for an individual child relative to the other
participating students in their
classroom. This within-classroom measure of family–school
connectedness is entered
into the level 1 equation to address the extent to which children
with relatively high
levels of family–school connectedness, compared with their
classmates, achieve
greater rates of teacher-reported development in the social
outcomes.
The average ratings of family–school connectedness vary
between teachers, and it
may be the case that greater mean levels of family–school
connectedness as reported
by teachers may be associated with greater rates of social
development for children in
the classroom. Thus, the four measures of family–school
connectedness were also
included as classroom-level variables and entered into the level
2 model: relationship

118. quality (B13), phone contacts (B14), voluntary contacts (B15),
and parent–teacher con-
ferences (B16). These coefficients determine the extent to
which teachers, who on
average, report higher quality relationships and more contacts,
have students who on
average, develop positive social outcomes at a greater rate.
Y B B fall pretest B child and family characterij -= + ( ) +00 01
02 08 iistics
B relationship quality B phone contacts B
( )
+ ( ) + ( ) +09 10 111
12 13
voluntary contacts
B parent teacher conferences B
( )
+ !( ) + mmean relationship quality
B mean phone contacts B m
( )
+ ( ) +14 15 eean voluntary contacts
B mean parent teacher conferenc
( )
+ !16 ees r uij j( ) + + 0 .
(1)
To address the second research question that examines the
extent to which the

119. associations between quality of the parent–teacher relationship
and children’s social
outcomes were moderated by the child and family
characteristics, interaction terms
were added to Equation 1. Specifically, an interaction term was
computed for the
within-class measure of relationship quality and for each of the
child and family
characteristics (fall pretest, gender, English is the first
language, race, poverty status,
and years of maternal education). Each interaction term was
entered separately in the
models to examine the extent to which relationship quality had
a differential associa-
tion with children’s development for different subgroups of
children.
Missing data were estimated using multiple imputation
procedures, which created
20 data files with complete data. The multilevel analyses were
conducted for each of
the 20 imputed data files using Proc Mixed in SAS (SAS
Institute Inc., Cary, NC;
Singer, 1998). Coefficients and SE resulting from each analysis
were pooled to provide
estimates of the associations between each predictor and
outcome.
Results
Family–School Connectedness and Children’s Social Outcomes
during Pre-k
Preliminary analyses were conducted to estimate intra-class
correlations (ICCs) to
determine the proportion of the total variance (within- and

120. between-classroom sources)
in each outcome that is attributed to differences between pre-k
classrooms. Because the
outcome of interest in this study is children’s development from
the beginning of pre-k
to either the end of pre-k or the beginning of kindergarten, these
unconditional models
included one predictor—the associated fall pre-k assessment. By
including this pre-
dictor, the ICCs represent the proportion of between-classroom
variance in children’s
development of these outcomes over time. The ICCs for
development of social com-
petence, problem behaviors, teacher–child closeness, and
teacher–child conflict during
pre-k were .19, .18, .24, and .16, respectively; each of these is
significantly different
32 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
than zero. The ICCs for development of social competence,
problem behaviors,
teacher–child closeness, and teacher–child conflict from the
beginning of pre-k until
the beginning of kindergarten were .18, .15, .08, and .06,
respectively; each of these is
significantly different than zero.
Table 4 presents results from hierarchical linear models that
examined associations
between each child outcome reported by teachers in spring of

121. pre-k and the following
predictors: child and family characteristics (fall pretest scores,
gender, English is the
child’s first language, race/ethnicity, poverty status, and
maternal education), quality of
the parent–teacher relationship, and frequency of contacts
between the teacher and
each child’s parent in three contexts (phone contacts, parent
attended voluntary func-
tions, and parent–teacher conferences). Unstandardized
regression coefficients (B) and
standard errors (SE) are provided that indicate the direction and
magnitude of these
associations.
For each of the four outcomes, fall ratings were significantly
associated with spring
ratings, and there was a significant gender effect, such that
compared with girls, boys
were rated as having significantly lower social competence (B =
-.11) and closeness
with teachers (B = -.08), and greater problem behaviors (B =
.09) and conflict in their
relationships with teachers (B = .12). There were also
differences in problem behaviors
and teacher–child conflict related to children’s race/ethnicity.
Specifically, African-
American children were rated as having more problem behaviors
(B = .05) and more
conflict in their relationships with teachers (B = .11) compared
with White children.
Further, children whose mothers had fewer years of education
were rated by teachers
as having greater levels of problem behavior than children with
mothers with more
years of education (B = -.01).

122. There were significant associations between the group-mean-
centered teachers’
reports of the quality of their relationships with parents and
with each of the four
outcomes. Specifically, relative to other children in the
classroom, children whose
teachers reported having a higher quality relationship with their
parents were rated by
the teacher to be more socially competent (B = .28), to have
fewer problem behaviors
(B = -.21), and to have formed closer relationships with
teachers (B = .35) and have
less conflict in their relationships (B = -.38) with teachers.
These associations were
also evident at the classroom level in which teachers’ average
ratings of family–school
connectedness for children in their classes were entered in the
level 2 model. Specifi-
cally, teachers, who reported on average higher quality
relationships with parents, also
judged these children to develop greater levels of social
competence (B = .36), lower
levels of problem behaviors (B = -.20), and relationships with
the teacher marked by
high levels of closeness (B = .51) and low levels of conflict (B
= -.29).
There were also significant associations between the frequency
of phone contacts
and the children’s social outcomes during pre-k. Specifically,
teachers, who reported a
greater number of phone contacts with a child’s parents relative
to the number of phone
contacts the teacher had with the other children in the
classroom, also reported that the

123. child developed less social competence (B = -.07), more
problem behaviors (B = .07),
and greater levels of teacher–child conflict (B = .13). Following
the inclusion of this
block of child-level predictors, the proportion of the within-
classroom variance that
was explained for children’s development (above and beyond
the fall pretest assess-
ment) of social competence, problem behaviors, teacher–child
closeness, and teacher–
child conflict was 11 percent, 12 percent, 10 percent, and 9
percent, respectively.
At the classroom level, a significant association was found
between mean levels of
phone contact and teacher–child closeness, such that teachers,
who reported on average
Family–School Connections in Pre-k 33
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
T
ab
le
4.
A
ss
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34 Zewelanji N. Serpell and Andrew J. Mashburn
© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011 Social Development, 21, 1,
2012
L
ev
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2
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