Introduction
The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is working with Child Trends to conduct The Role of Licensing in Early Care and Education (TRLECE) project to identify and address gaps in our knowledge about child care and early education (CCEE) licensing. As part of the TRLECE project, Child Trends conducted three national surveys in 2023 with 1) state and territory CCEE licensing administrators, 2) front-line CCEE licensing staff, and 3) licensed CCEE providers (both center-based and family child care providers).
Purpose
This report provides a detailed description of three surveys conducted by TRLECE: a survey of CCEE licensing administrators, a survey of front-line CCEE licensing staff, and a survey of CCEE providers. It is meant to provide sufficient detail for other researchers to use the restricted-use data sets and for readers of our reports to fully understand our methods. It explains the purpose, questionnaire content, data collection methods and procedures, respondent demographic characteristics, and descriptions for how to understand variable names. The report also describes data cleaning procedures and weights. It provides detailed information on the usable responses, response rate calculations, and common items across surveys.
Key Findings and Highlights
This report describes key aspects of the three surveys including:
- Survey Development
- Sample Design
- Recruitment Strategy and timeframe
- Data Quality Monitoring, Data Cleaning, Missing Data
- Useable Responses and Response Rate
- Variable Naming and Abbreviations
- Demographic Characteristics
- Response Weight Descriptions, when relevant
- Parallel Survey Items Across Surveys
Methods
The TRLECE project conducted three national surveys regarding CCEE licensing from three respondent perspectives: 1) licensing administrators in each state, territory, and D.C.; 2) frontline licensing staff who conduct CCEE monitoring and inspections for licensed providers in each state and D.C.; and 3) licensed CCEE providers from centers and family child care homes in each state and D.C. Data were collected between April 2023 and August 2023, primarily online.
Citation
Early, D.M., Miranda, B., Gal-Szabo, D., Harris, P., Villegas, E., Madill, R., Kelley, S., Rochester, S.E., Maglaque, D., Ekyalongo, Y.Y., Lin, Y.-C., Fuller, J., & Maxwell, K. (2024). The Role of Licensing in Early Care and Education (TRLECE) Survey methods, users’ guide, and respondent demographic characteristics. OPRE Report 2024-136, Washington DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Glossary
- Child care and early education:
- Caregiving and educational services for children from birth to age 13. CCEE includes center- and home-based settings for infants, toddlers, preschool- and school-aged children. CCEE refers to services for a larger age group than early care and education (ECE), which consists of services provided only for young children (birth to age 5 who are not yet in kindergarten). ECE programs are included within the definition of CCEE.
- Child care and early education center:
- “Child care services for fewer than 24 hours per day per child in a nonresidential setting, unless care in excess of 24 hours is due to the nature of the parent(s)’ work” (National Center on Early Childhood Quality Assurance, 2015a, p. 3).
- Child care and early education licensing:
- Establishes regulations that must be met to legally operate a child care program. Child care licensing also monitors and enforces those regulations.
- Child care and early education provider:
- An organization or individual that provides CCEE services (adapted from Child Care & Early Education Research Connections, n.d.).
- Family child care:
- “Child care provided for one or more unrelated children in a provider's home setting.” (Child Care & Early Education Research Connections, n.d.). “Family child care” can be used to describe a provider (i.e., person) or a setting (i.e., home).
- Front-line licensing staff:
- Individuals who routinely conduct licensing inspections of licensed CCEE programs. They may have other responsibilities as well, as long as one of their jobs is to routinely conduct licensing inspections.
- Inspection:
- A visit to assess if a CCEE provider is meeting licensing regulations.
- Licensing administrator:
- The person who oversees the operation of the CCEE licensing agency.