ABSTRACT
A large body of research has examined the quality of educational processes in preschools, but it has usually been studied at the group level. Thus, there is a lack of research on the quality of educational processes as experienced by individual children. Therefore, this study investigated the quality of educational processes in preschools at the individual child level. The sample consisted of 133 children attending 51 preschools that were located in two German federal states. Data were collected in spring 2006 (first year in preschool), spring 2007 (second year), and spring 2008 (third year). The findings revealed moderate educational quality with regard to a ‘support of social competencies’ composite, whereas educational quality representing the composites ‘support of cognitive competencies,’ ‘support of early literacy competencies,’ and ‘support of early numeracy competencies’ was virtually inadequate. This applied to the first, second, and third preschool years. In addition, there were some modest, albeit inconsistent, changes in educational process quality over time.
