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Educare RCT and Follow-Up

Early Childhood Education Institute Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, The University of Oklahoma - Tulsa website wordmark
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Educare RCT and Follow-Up Studies

The ECEI partnered with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, as well as researchers in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Omaha to conduct the Educare Randomized Control Trial. Families seeking to enroll children in the Educare program from 2010–2012 were recruited to participate in the study and randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. The study sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the Educare program by looking at the cognitive, language, social-emotional, and executive functioning abilities of child participants.

The project received additional funds in 2015 to follow children in their kindergarten through third-grade years. Collaborators for this Follow-Up phase of the study included researchers in Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City, and Central Maine, in addition to our partners at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The primary purpose of this phase was to determine whether the children who attended Educare continued to benefit from the services they received from the program.

Data collection wrapped up in 2021. During the study, a variety of assessments were used: the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (fall of Kindergarten only), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), the Woodcock-Johnson III, the Child School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire, the Memory for Digit Span, and the Head Toes Knees and Shoulders task, among others.  

Dr. Diane Horm, Dr. Shinyoung Jeon, Melissa Acton, and Moira Clavijo collaborated with FPG researchers to publish results of the study in 2022. Dr. Jeon, former ECEI Senior Researcher, continues to analyze the results of the Follow-Up Study with a grant from ACF titled "Exploring Variations Among Head Start Dual Language Learners: What Factors Predict Differential Longitudinal Developmental Patterns”. Results from this grant will be shared in 2024.