Key Roles in Data Collection:

1. Social Development Canada
2. UEY Community
3. Researchers

Context:

The UEY initiative is all about providing multi-source, high-quality data to communities on the “readiness to learn” of their young children, and the family and community factors that influence children’s development. This information empowers communities to make policy, program and investment decisions that meet the needs of their children and families.

In the UEY pilots, certain research instruments and methods were used to collect the data. In order to ensure that UEY delivers the best possible data in the expanded UEY initiative, Social Development Canada is assessing the research instruments and the methods of data collection, and will make decisions prior to the launch of the first new UEY sites. These decisions do not affect the information provided below.

Data Collection:

Data will be collected in each community through the following research methods:

• teacher assessments of children.
• direct assessments of children.
• parent interviews.
• surveys of local resources and services.

These multi-source data collection exercises provide the means for gathering high quality information on the five domains of “readiness to learn”, and the family and community factors that influence child outcomes:

• children’s “readiness to learn” is assessed by the teachers’ assessments of their students through a questionnaire about each student, and through direct assessments of children’s knowledge and skills by independent researchers.

• family background and family process information is collected through parent interviews on factors such as socio-economic status, parenting style and residential stability, and is conducted by independent researchers.

• local data collection, conducted in the community through surveys and / or observational research, is collected on available resources (such as parks or libraries), programs and services (such as health services for expectant mothers, or programs for children), as well as related information such as the safety of neighbourhoods.

Social Development Canada

Social Development Canada directly pays for and manages the contracts for the teacher assessments, direct assessments, and parent interviews.

Social Development Canada works with the UEY community coordinator to implement these research activities at the local level. Implementation involves the cooperation of local school boards.

These research activities - the teacher assessments, direct assessments, and parent interviews - are carried out by independent, expert researchers hired under contract by Social Development Canada.

UEY Community

Social Development Canada transfers funds under the Contribution Agreement to UEY communities to conduct community data collection.

The UEY community coordinator plays key roles.

He or she must facilitate the collection of the teacher assessments, direct assessments, and parent interviews, working with Social Development Canada, the research team collecting the data, as well as the local schools and school boards.

She or he is also the manager of the community data collection (the surveys and / or observational research on available resources and programs and services for children and their families, as well as related information such as the safety of neighbourhoods). This research could be conducted by the coordinator or another member involved in the local UEY project (such as a member of the community coalition), or by some other entity such as researchers from a local University. How this work is done can be decided by the local UEY community.

School Board(s) (or equivalent) and Teacher(s).
The local school board(s) play a key role in the data collection, as do the teachers.

The research samples (the list of children and their parents for the research on the children and the parent interviews) are drawn from the school board’s lists of the children. These lists are a critical starting point for good data collection for UEY.

The community coordinator will work with school boards to develop the lists. Depending on the school board’s normal research and information practices, this might involve using a research ethics committee to approve the research, and will likely involve some form of permission from the parents. The community coordinator will work with the school boards to acquire the necessary approvals to conduct the research, and to garner the participation of parents.

The school boards must also approve the involvement of the teachers in their schools. The teachers complete questionnaires on each of the children in their class. The questionnaires cover the five domains of children’s “readiness to learn”. Typically, in the pilots, teachers completed these questionnaires during school hours in the months of February or March, after about five or six months experience with the children, and substitute teachers were used to replace the teachers on the days they completed the questionnaires. Social Development Canada reimburses the costs of the substitute teachers for this purpose.

Researchers

For each data collection exercise, researchers play a key role.

For the teacher assessments, teachers collect the data.

For the direct assessments, independent researchers work with the children to directly assess their “readiness to learn”. In the pilots, this work was conducted in the schools around the same time as the teacher assessments were completed. The direct assessments will likely continue to be conducted in the schools, but this could change depending on the results of Social Development Canada’s review of UEY research instruments and methods.

Independent researchers conduct the parent interviews, usually by telephone using a standard questionnaire.

At the community level, in the UEY pilots, two primary pieces of research were carried out: a survey of programs and services available to children and their families, and observational research on resources and related matters such as neighbourhood safety. These research activities were carried out locally, and conducted in different manners by different players depending on the UEY pilot site. Feedback from the coordinators in the UEY pilots suggests that there should be more flexibility in the community data collection. Communities will be given more latitude in the new UEY communities to identify their local research needs relating to the UEY project.