Measures of individual children's experiences within the ECEC group predict child development outcomes with higher effect sizes than global quality measures¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In studies comparing global measures with individual-child-experience measures, prediction of child development outcomes is of higher effect size when the individual child experience is the focus. → Bly 2026

Evidence¶

Bly 2026¶

Bly, S., Houen, S., Staton, S., & Thorpe, K. (2026). Community, Children, Child: New Directions for Equitable Delivery Of High-Quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-026-10215-7

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports this comparison citing Burchinal et al. (2021) and Jeon et al. (2022); it states higher effect sizes for individualised focus but prints no coefficient, so no magnitude is reported.

"In studies com -paring global measures with those examining individual child experiences within a ECEC group, prediction of child development outcomes is of higher effect size when the individual child experience is the focus (Burchinal et al., 2021; Jeon et al., 2022)."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Interventions that change educator behaviour to match standard global definitions of quality have delivered negligible effects on children's developmental outcomes — related
• Global ECEC quality indices show little evidence of relating to child outcomes — related
• Prior meta-analyses report few or weak associations between ECEC quality indices and child progress, with process quality more predictive than structural quality — related