Thirty-six family child care providers were divided into matched pairs, then randomly assigned to two treatment groups; catalyst and self-study. The purpose was to investigate how training affects quality of child care and to determine what provider characteristics interact with self-paced learning methods to change quality of care.

The Family Day Care Rating Scale (Harms & Clifford, 1989) was used to rate quality of care. Three pretest and three posttest ratings were collected for each provider before and after a three-month treatment period. Ratings were collected from trained validators, from the providers as a self-rating, and from parents with children in care. An additional score was collected from providers regarding their perception of training method using a ten-item rating scale.

There was a 38% attrition rate in the original sample resulting in a final sample size 8 Pp of 22. Results from this study suggest that at least two key criteria affect quality of care in family child care; (a) provider training in child-related areas and, (b) provider affiliation with family day care organizations. Providers not previously affiliated with a family day care association had a greater initial margin for improving their quality (E=9.21 p<.007) than affiliated providers.

All providers improved their quality of care scores during the three month period. When asked to evaluate the training, all providers perceived their assigned training method as flexible and convenient. Providers in the catalyst training group rated two items significantly higher than self-study; the value of new information (E=11.30 p<.003), and the degree of personal growth experienced (F=9.28, p<.007).

Parents differed from both validators and providers in their evaluation of the provider’s child care environment. This suggests that parents are not fully aware of either the components of quality child care or the daily operations in the home of their own family child care provider.