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A Study of Coaching and Support for New York City's PreK for All programs
Description
This study examines coaches working within NYC’s UPK system and how these individuals fit into the system of supports for UPK programs. Coaches are charged with supporting EC teaching staff to improve practice in alignment with research and policy. The assumption has been that individuals employed as coaches have the expertise to help a workforce with diverse qualifications and experiences to learn and apply best practices. There is, however, a gap in the extant literature about the qualifications, experiences, and day-to-day functions of these individuals. Much of the focus of research on the EC workforce has been on teachers and, more recently, administrators, but less so on those who support program improvement within and across sites. This study involves collecting and analyzing a range of data sources. First, we will identify and describe the workforce of EC coaches by developing profiles of coaches and by identifying organizational factors shaping their work. Second, we will examine coaches’ time use to describe the range of activities comprising their work. Third, we plan to examine what coaches perceive their roles to be as conveyors of content knowledge and policies and policy knowledge. Please see the resources section below for the final report.
Design
Participants:
Coaches and professional development specialists working at ACS and DOE
Sampling Strategy:
We will work with city officials to map the current system of PD supports. This information will then inform the identification of coaches and PDI for participation.
Data Collection:
- At three points throughout the school year we will conduct structured interviews with the identified coaches for the purpose of completing a time use diary. The time use diary is a retrospective semi-structured interview that asks the participant to reflect and report on the past 24 hours. These reports are then coded to represent the task and record how long was spent on the task.
- We are sampling on 3 different days at 3 different points in the year to ensure that we capture the ways the work of coaches and other technical assistance providers changes through the year.
Researchers
Sharon Ryan, Ed.D., Senior Research Fellow, NIEER; Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Learning and Teaching at Rutgers University.
Steve Barnett, Ph.D., Board of Governors Professor, and Senior Co-director and Founder, NIEER at Rutgers University
Contributing Institutions
National Institution of Early Education Research (NIEER) at Rutgers University
Resources
Sharon Ryan and Zijia Li
This presentation was given at the New York City Early Childhood Research Network Research symposium on December 6, 2019. The presentation previews key findings from the study of Time Use Study of Coaches in New York City’s UPK Program.
Sharon Ryan and Zijia Li
This poster was shared at the New York City Early Childhood Research Network Research symposium on December 6, 2019. The poster previews key findings from the study of Time Use Study of Coaches in New York City’s UPK Program.
Sharon Ryan and Zijia Li
This report provides key findings from the Time Use Study of Coaches in New York City’s UPK Program. The study employed time use methodology, and addressed the main research question: "How do a group of NYC pre-K site support personnel use their time?" It also sought to answer the sub-questions: "What are the common activities site support personnel spend their time doing and for how long?" and "How do activities and time use vary across the demographics and roles of site support personnel?"