At the centre of classroom quality: teacher–child interaction

How is the quality of a preschool classroom measured? For a long time the answer was structural: child-to-teacher ratio, room size, teacher qualifications, richness of materials. These matter but are not sufficient. Over the past two decades the field has converged on process quality — the character of the interactions a teacher builds with children through the day.

What process quality measures

The most widely used tools assess classroom interactions across emotional support, classroom organisation and instructional support. Veraksa and colleagues' review systematises correlational and longitudinal studies linking these domains to aspects of preschool language development — phonological awareness, vocabulary, sound–letter knowledge — and reports a high level of agreement across findings.

The individual-level observation system developed by Downer and colleagues addresses a different question: measuring one child's interactions with teachers, peers and tasks rather than a classroom average. The distinction matters, because two children in the same room can have very different interactional experiences.

When measurement misleads

Thorpe and colleagues' large-scale analysis shows process quality scores vary systematically across the day: a general decline through the day with a recovery in emotional support at the end. Meal times, physical activity and transitions constrain scores, while whole-group and small-group formats and academic content inflate them. In other words, the instrument measures not only the teacher but the timing of the observation.

This does not make the tools worthless; it shows how to read them. A quality judgement resting on a single observation session is heavily shaped by when that session happened and what activity it caught.

Findings are not always one-directional

The literature also shows interaction quality is not equally decisive for every outcome. Rüdisüli and colleagues' longitudinal study with 62 teachers and 393 children found no significant cross-sectional association between interaction quality and children's playfulness, and reported that longitudinally the learning-support domain related negatively to some playfulness dimensions. The authors discuss which teaching styles may hamper or promote playfulness.

• Structural indicators are necessary but not sufficient.
• Process quality is the dimension most consistently associated with child outcomes.
• The time of observation and the activity type directly affect the score.
• A classroom average can hide an individual child's experience.

The field's conclusion is simple: the quality of a classroom is the quality of the conversations, glances and feedback exchanged with children through the day. Measurement tools try to capture that reality; they do not replace it.

References

• Veraksa, A., Gavrilova, M. & Bukhalenkova, D. (2019). Association between the quality of teacher-child interaction and language development. Voprosy Obrazovaniya / Educational Studies Moscow.
• Downer, J. T. et al. (2009). The Individualized Classroom Assessment Scoring System (inCLASS): Preliminary reliability and validity. Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
• Thorpe, K. et al. (2020). The when and what of measuring ECE quality. Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
• Rüdisüli, C., Duss, I. & Lannen, P. (2024). Relations between teacher–child interaction quality and children's playfulness. Early Child Development and Care.
• Al-Hendawi, M. et al. (2025). Direct observation systems for child behavior assessment in early childhood education. Discover Mental Health.