The purpose of this study was: (1) to examine relationships between social development and day care quality, child-care experience and family characteristics, and (2) to investigate the explainability of those related variables for social development....
The purpose of this study was: (1) to examine relationships between social development and day care quality, child-care experience and family characteristics, and (2) to investigate the explainability of those related variables for social development. Subjects for this study were 252 4-year-old children and their mothers from 32 day care centers in Seoul. Harms & Clifford`s Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale was used to measure the quality of day care. The main results were as follows: (1) Day care quality, child-care experience and family characteristics were significantly related to social development. (2) Child`s gender, months of age, mother`s child rearing attitude, the length of child-care experience, overall quality of day care, and group size significantly predicted social development. 33% of the variance of social development was explained by these variables. The relative influence of these variables to the prediction of social development was about the same.