A Behavioral Approach to Training Day Care Workers

Day care workers are not only responsible for meeting the needs of the children they care for but creating an enriched and friendly environment as well. Few daycare centers require any specific inservice training for their staff members. When provided, training typically occurs as a didactic workshop. For this study a multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of didactic training, goal setting, and feedback on day care staff members’(n=7) use of “quality” interactions with the children in their care. The results showed that although didactic training marginally increased the level of interactions, the day care workers’ interactions were highly variable and susceptible to decay over time. For the majority of the partic ipants individualized goal setting and feedback produced higher, more stable levels of interactions.