SOLUTIONS

Brief Early Childhood Quality Inventory (BEQI) Together in Practice Toolkit

A quality measurement and improvement system to support early childhood educators

What is included in the Toolkit?

    • 50-item observation checklist used by trained observer virtually or in-person to look at evidence-based practices and characteristics.

    • Scored using yes/no scale that is streamlined, easy-to-train on and easy-to-interpret.

    • Captures educator perspective and background, covering demographic information, aspects of mental health, perceptions of key practices, and engagement with families.

    • The BEQI Online portal provides objective, immediate, and strengths-based feedback sent directly to educators based on their observation

    • Encourages goal-setting, and offers light-touch professional development to educators through SMS texts or WhatsApp messages.

    • The BEQI Online portal provides real-time aggregated results for programs, networks, and governments that help identify areas in need, especially in settings with limited coaching capacity.

Our unique tech-enabled and strengths-based feedback system provides educators and administrators with useful data to increase uptake of evidence-based practices

BEQI generates more data and supports educators, networks, programs, and governments with less cost and time

How it Works

Get more data on educators’ interactions and practices

Give data and feedback to educators and the stakeholders who support them

Help educators improve their evidence-based practices

Leveraging Data and Technology Can Contribute to Better Child Outcomes

If we make data collection and feedback easier with our flexible measure, combined with technology...

We can use data to target improvement…

Leading to better outcomes for all children especially the most vulnerable.

Early Childhood Professionals Love BEQI Together in Practice

  • 90% of childcare coaches state BEQI helps educators understand their strengths and areas for improvement

  • 96% of educators who use BEQI report it was helpful to receive immediate strengths-based feedback

  • >400 hours saved for network of 100+ programs, compared to competitor tools

What are Users Saying?

“Unlike many other measures of quality, the BEQI is a streamlined tool that sets the stage for meaningful collaboration with childcare providers to facilitate quality improvements.”

Shannon Cotsoradis,
Former Chief Executive Officer, Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative

“Using BEQI in Guinea Bissau has been like throwing a little stone in the lake and seeing the ripples make their way through the entire ECE system.  This first step of using the BEQI has had a huge impact on the way we use data and a transformation of the way we view ECE in Guinea Bissau”

Carla Jauad, ECD Officer, UNICEF Guinea Bissau

“BEQI helps me dig into all the important areas in an organized, thought-provoking way with them and makes it much easier to set goals along the way to having a quality program.”

Claudia Zapata,
Childcare Coach

FAQs

    • BEQI: Together in Practice is a tech-enabled strengths-based system that provides immediate feedback to teachers through SMS texts or WhatsApp messages based on results from the BEQI observation tool

    • BEQI: Together in Practice focuses first on what an educator is doing well then offers feedback for addressing areas of improvement

    • BEQI: Together in Practice encourages goal-setting and provides light-touch professional development to educators through SMS texts or WhatsApp messages based on the identified areas for improvement

    • The BEQI observational tool is streamlined and easy to use. The observation tool is scored using a yes/no scale and is easy to train on and easy to interpret. The tool requires less training than traditional quality measurement tools at 8 hours. Using our training methods, 96% of observers who complete BEQI training become reliable.

    • Other tools have been focused primarily on research rather than for use as a monitoring tool. BEQI focuses on specific evidence-based behaviors and practices and is designed to be used for large-scale government or program monitoring over time.

    • The BEQI observation tool has flexible uses and can be used for program evaluation without a coaching component, or it can be combined with the Together in Practice text-message based goal setting/virtual coaching system.

    • We require that organizations or individuals complete a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to access the BEQI tools. The BEQI tools, training materials, and implementation materials are proprietary to ECD Measure. Please contact us to learn more about accessing the tools or if you are ready to complete an MoU.

    • Access to the paper version of the BEQI observation and educator questionnaire is free. For additional costs, ECD Measure can:

      • Support teams in adapting and aligning the tool to local standards and priorities

      • Virtually train enumerators on how to reliably administer BEQI

      • Offer access to our BEQI Online Portal which can be used for:

        • Easy data entry and data management (including CSV exports),

        • Providing aggregated BEQI results to programs

        • Providing individualized observation feedback to educators

    • Set up the Together in Practice system to encourage goal-setting and provide light-touch professional development to educators through SMS texts or WhatsApp messages.

    • Provide access to descriptive data and prepare brief descriptive report on results

    • Code local classroom videos with BEQI scores.

    • Provide additional technical assistance on giving feedback to teachers, analyzing data, and further tool use.

    Please contact ECD Measure for more information on training and training costs.

    • BEQI has been used across different early childhood settings around the world, including family childcare programs for children 0-5, preschool classrooms, and community based early childhood programs. To date, BEQI has been used in more than 20 countries.

    • We have two primary data collection tools, the BEQI observation tool and the BEQI educator questionnaire. Data is entered using the BEQI Online Platform.

    • The BEQI observation tool can be administered virtually or live through a 90-minute observation by a trained enumerators.

    • The BEQI educator questionnaire includes a brief set of questions that can be self-administered or through interview (approximately 10-15 minutes) to capture educator and classroom background information, aspects of mental health, perceptions of key practices, and engagement with families.

    • The BEQI observation covers different areas of evidence-based practices and characteristics for early childhood settings. Domains include:

      • Learning through conversation

      • Fostering child autonomy

      • Stimulating materials and space

      • Facilitating learning through play

      • Promoting strong relationships

      • Safe and healthy environment

    • The BEQI educator questionnaire gathers background information on educators, their perceived efficacy, knowledge of evidence-based practices, and perceptions of strengths and areas for improvement.

    • ECD Measure offers a virtual 8-hour training, with additional time required for “homework” activities and practice school visits.

    • We have begun analyzing the internal structure of BEQI’s observational tool. We have preliminary evidence of latent quality constructs for language rich environment, child autonomy, and stimulating physical environment. Further testing and analyses are underway for educator facilitating learning, and social-emotional development, as well as associations with child development.

    • ECD Measure team members contributed to the development of the Measure of Early Learning Environment (MELE) tool and were part of the MELQO consortium and technical team. We developed the BEQI tool based on our experience with MELE and other early childhood quality measurement tools. BEQI is designed to be easier-to-use and yield more actionable and relevant results.

    • You can find more information with our BEQI Global Fact Sheet here: Download Now

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