Analysis of the structural and functional quality traits of preschool education institutions

The present study aimed to provide an analysis of the structural and functional quality traits of preschool education institutions, employing screening research methodology. The study group was composed of a total of 30 purposively-sampled preschool classrooms under the Ministry of Education including ten independent preschools, ten school-affiliated preschool classes, and ten private preschools in the Ataşehir, Üsküdar, Kadıköy, and Ümraniye districts of the province of İstanbul. The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) was used to collect data to determine the level of quality of the institutions, administered through the researcher's classroom observation of 5-6 hours in the designated classrooms in April, May, June, and July in the 2017-2018 educational year. The mean scores of preschool education institutions from the scale revealed that 7 out of 30 schools (23.3%) got 1-3 points and therefore were rated as "inadequate", 19 schools (63.3%) as "minimal", and 4 schools (13.3%) got between 5-7 points and were rated as "good". Based on these findings, it could be suggested that 76.7% of the preschool education institutions analyzed in the study met minimal acceptable quality criteria. The results also showed that institutions' ECERS scores and type of institution did not significantly differ in terms of the sub-categories of furnishings and tools and social development. When it comes to the sub-categories of personal care routines, language-reasoning experiences, small and large muscle development activities, creative activities, and adult needs, however, there was a significant difference in favour of private preschools between ECERS total score and type of institution. In addition, the Mann Whitney U test analyses of quality scores that led to differences in types of preschool education institutions showed that private preschools were the most advantageous group, while school-affiliated preschool classes were the most disadvantageous ones.