Structural, process and curriculum quality in Dutch day care and preschool provisions

The presented study investigated the structural, process and curriculum quality in Dutch Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) system. Teachers (N = 46) com-pleted a structured questionnaire about the teacher, classroom and center charac-teristics. Furthermore, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Toddler was used to measure the process quality in 28 Dutch day care and preschool provi-sions considered to be good practices. Results regarding structural quality revealed small significant differences between day care and preschool provisions for teach-er’s educational level, children-to-teacher ratio, and classroom composition. As regards process quality, the results showed moderate to high Emotional Support and moderate levels of Support for Learning in both types. No significant differences were identified in process quality between day care and preschool classrooms. Finally, the teachers reported placing the greatest emphasis on activities involving pretend play, self-regulation and language and fewer opportunities concerning literacy, maths and science activities, with no significant differences between the two provisions.