Perceptions of the value of national accreditation by Baptist Church weekday early education program directors

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore and analyze the perceptions of the value of NAEYC Academy Accreditation by a select group of Baptist Church Early Care and Education Weekday Ministry program directors. Data emerging from the descriptive research methodology used in this project, informed church Early Childhood Ministry leaders of the value of NAEYC Academy Program Accreditation as a method to improve the quality of programing in church based ECE.

The research consisted of two phases. The first phase was the pilot phase for interviews of a convenience sample of two NAEYC Academy Accredited Baptist Church ECE programs. The second phase the survey phase, utilized the data collected from the interviews to create a Likert response style survey instrument titled Perceptions of Value of Accreditation Instrument .

The findings from the analysis of the data have shown that the majority of the program directors perceived that NAEYC Academy Accreditation has great value to help improve and maintain program quality. A majority of the directors perceived that the NAEYC criteria are quality standards. There was a variance in the perceptions of the two groups concerning this second research question, with the veteran directors holding a more positive perception than the young to accreditation directors. The directors perceive that maintaining the standards will help produce quality programing in a church based ECE ministry. They perceived that NAEYC Academy Accreditation was a viable option and obtainable by church ECE programs.

The Baptist church program directors perceived that their church leaders gave spiritual and moral support to their efforts to achieve accreditation. The majority of church directors/leaders indicated that they and their staff accomplished the rigors of national accreditation with little outside assistance or financial support. The sample has shown that large church organizations and small church programs can accomplish NAEYC Academy Accreditation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)