Child care providers’ perceptions of their training needs and barriers to implementation

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine what kinds of knowledge child care providers perceive they need, how they prefer to receive this training, what types of knowledge are most useful to them, and what barriers exist to applying what they have learned in their classrooms. The study used a MANOVA to identify what the child care providers perceived their level of knowledge on child development, what knowledge they deemed most needed in child development trainings, and what barriers they feel make the biggest impact their ability to implement the training. A Chi-Square was used to determine if there were group differences in where they prefer to receive their trainings. While none of the MANOVAs or the Chi-Square suggested any significance related to years of experience or education level, the data still supported the need for understanding the teacher’s perceptions on these topics.