HSIPC: Head Start Bulletin--Head Start Highlights: Head Start's Dynamic Research Agenda

By Esther Kresh, Program Specialist, Program Development Branch, Head Start Bureau, and Louisa Tarullo, Social Science Research Analyst, Research, Demonstration & Evaluation Branch, ACYF

One of Head Start's missions is to serve as a national laboratory to test state-of-the-art techniques for serving low-income children ages birth to 5 and their families to provide information for policy and practice.

For several years now, Head Start has involved the research community in planning the national Head Start research agenda and in forming partnerships with local Head Start programs to conduct research that will benefit both Head Start and the larger child development field.

Head Start's revitalized research agenda has benefited from consultation with a number of researchers, program practitioners, and policy analysts. In particular, the present agenda is derived from four different groups, or committees, that were convened over the years to help plan Head Start's research direction: the "Blueprint" Panel, the Advisory Committee on Head Start Improvement and Expansion, the Advisory Committee on Services to Families with Infants and Toddlers, and most recently, the National Academy of Science's Head Start Roundtable.

The major areas of focus for the research agenda are improvement in Head Start quality, longitudinal studies, and evaluations of mandated studies.

To the extent possible, Head Start strives to conduct studies through collaborations with other government agencies or in partnerships with local Head Start or Early Head Start programs.

Recent studies which are nearing completion will add to Head Start's understanding of some of the special populations Head Start serves, such as bilingual and multicultural populations and migrant families.

A cornerstone of Head Start's research efforts to improve quality is the consortium of Head Start Quality Research Centers, charged with developing and testing better ways to measure Head Start program quality and its relationship to child and family outcomes.

In 1996, Head Start launched a large descriptive study of Head Start families to better understand their goals, needs, expectations, and satisfaction, and to identify best practices in serving these families.

Another study nearing completion is a descriptive study of Head Start's health services. This study will make a major contribution to improving the quality of Head Start services in the health area.

One crucial need for Head Start is the accumulation of longitudinal data on graduates of Head Start-funded programs. Head Start is now conducting a number of studies that will include a study of the new Early Head Start, a study of the transition of Head Start children into public school, a follow-up of the first cohort from the Comprehensive Child Development Program, a low-income substudy of the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care, and a Department of Education longitudinal study of early childhood. Some of the new university/Head Start partnership grants will also collect longitudinal data.

Head Start has applied innovative designs and state-of-the-art analytic techniques to conduct these studies. One innovative feature, first used in the transition study and improved upon for the Early Head Start study, is the use of local researchers in each of the research sites who form partnerships with local Head Start programs to conduct site specific research.

For a number of years, Head Start has awarded grants to universities to conduct research in local Head Start programs in partnership with Head Start agencies. Additionally, to encourage new researchers to conduct research on Head Start, doctoral-level grants are awarded to graduate students to conduct research in Head Start programs.

A second major effort to encourage university partnerships and disseminate research findings has been Head Start's series of national research conferences. These conferences have not only presented the latest research from the field, but have provided significant interaction opportunities between the researcher and practitioner communities. Head Start's 4th National Research Conference will be held in July 1998.

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Last Modified: 10/31/01


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