Quality of Early Childhood Care and Education in Addis Ababa: Caregiver Child Interaction, Parental Perception and Social Competence of Children (Input-Process-Output Approach)

Teferra, Belay (PhD)Lemma, Girma2018-08-062023-11-182018-08-062023-11-182014-02http://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/12345678/11009The purpose of this research was to describe and explain the contexts that shaped the caring and educational roles of ECCE centers in transiting the preschool child to the wider culture of school life in Addis Ababa with emphasis to the analysis of quality of care giver-child interaction, parental perception of ECCE programs and relationships to outcome variable in the area of social development. The theoretical discourse that shaped the research was fusion of different theories that articulated the importance of care giver child interaction for the holistic development of preschool children in the developmental sciences. A twenty-six item standardized instrument was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data on the quality of caregiver child interaction in preschool care and education centers. The overall mean value computed for the seventy classrooms observed from the Care giver Interaction Scale was found to be 3.29. Forty-three percent of the classrooms observed were below this mean value indicating that care giver child interaction was below the expected level. A significant proportion of the generalized variance in the Care giver Interaction Scale score was accounted for by the interaction of class size and care givers experience. Findings demonstrated that quality of care giver child interaction varied with center type, time of observation, space, physical set up, and access to learning and stimulating materials. A significant proportion of the variance in children’s social competence score was accounted for by the interaction of center type by father’s educational level. Parental perception of the role of preschool centers and quality of relationship with the centers varied across center types, socio economic status of parents and provisions availed in the centers. Implications to improve quality of ECCE programs in the study site are forwardeden-USInput-Process-Output ApproachQuality of Early Childhood Care and Education in Addis Ababa: Caregiver Child Interaction, Parental Perception and Social Competence of Children (Input-Process-Output Approach)Thesis