Assessing the quality of kindergarten environments with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale

The Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) has been developed as a screening instrument for a quality assessment of early childhood provisions (Harms & Clifford, 1980). The following chapter describes a German adaptation of the ECERS and its application in group settings for children from three to six years of age (German kindergarten). Data are reported with regard to item statistics, the reliability of the scale, its factor structure, and its relations to some external criteria. In general, the results suggest the appropriateness of the ECERS on the whole for assessing the quality of German kindergarten environments. However, some cultural modifications have to be made to obtain a better adaptation to the German kindergarten situation.