Abstract 

Background

Child-care professionals’ interactive skills are crucial for the quality of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Although previous research has identified multiple factors associated with these skills, their relative importance remains unclear.

Objective

This exploratory study compared thirteen structural and individual factors to determine which were most important for child-care professionals’ interactive skills.

Methods

Interactive skills were assessed using the observation-based Caregiver Interaction Profile (CIP) scales in a sample of 136 child-care professionals in 30 Danish ECEC centers for children aged 0.6 to 2.9 years. To determine the relative importance of the factors, dominance analysis, a statistical technique that compares the contribution of each factor to the explained variance in the outcome, was used.

Results

The relative importance of factors varied across the six CIP scales. Child-care professionals’ education level and self-reported attachment style were generally important across the scales, while other factors, including child-caregiver ratio, group size, job resources, and managers’ experience and tenure played a role for some CIP-scales.

Conclusions

The findings highlight the importance of considering both structural and individual factors in understanding individual differences in child-care professionals’ interactive skills in ECEC settings. Moreover, the results indicate that different factors are important for various domains of interactive skills, holding distinct implications for ECEC research and practice.