Data gathered from Tyler, Texas, the University of North Texas, and the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to compare children from commercial, home, church, and university based day care with children not attending day care. The research group, comprised of children attending day care (N=142), were located using non-probability sampling; those not in day care (the control group) came from the NSFH (N=1775). Data from the research group were weighted to match the control group. The independent and control variables included the child's age, length of time in day care, intellectual functioning; the parent's marital status and social class; the day care's staff to child ratio and the staff's training. All data, except that pertaining to the facility itself, were gathered from the children's parents using a self-report questionnaire. The remaining data were gathered through personal interview by the researcher. The dependent variable was an index of emotional and behavioral problems reported for the child. Overall, children who attended day care had only slightly more problems reported than those who did had not attended day care. When each center was examined separately, the children in home centers had the greatest number of problems, followed by the commercial centers and university center, with children from the church centers scoring the lowest. In contrast to earlier research, intellectual functioning was not enhanced by the day care experience. While the staff's training had a statistically significant relationship to the children's well-being, no relationship was found for the staff to child ratio. Further research on the impact of other characteristics of each type of day care is recommended.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc279199 |
| Date | 08 1900 |
| Creators | Davis, David C. (David Carlton) |
| Contributors | Seward, Rudy Ray, Medler, Byron, Engels, Dennis W., Neal, David M., Barton, Thomas R. |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | x, 146 leaves : ill., Text |
| Rights | Public, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved., Davis, David C. (David Carlton) |
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