Purpose and research questions. This potential research project is much less well thought out than the scales project. In discussions with Pam Boulton, the director of the UWM Child Care Center, we have come to realize that where there is knowledge about the relation of the physical environment and child care, much more is known at the older preschool age range (roughly 3 to school-entering age) and some at the infant age (6 weeks to 1 or 1-1/2 years), but almost nothing at the toddler age (roughly 1-1/2 to 3). Questions include how to arrange internal child care space to support the particular needs and developmental tasks of toddlers? What are the effects of different spatial arrangements (e.g., larger open spaces v smaller, semi-enclosed activity settings) on social and motor behavior? What are the effects of different groupings (single licensing-defined group sizes in a space, v two group sizes in the same overall space)? What other characteristics and qualities of the physical environment might support or facilitate the special demands fo toddlers?

Research methods. Virtually no thought has gone into this at the present time, but the most logical possibilities would include some form of non-equivalent control group or time-series quasi-experimental research design, with outcome measures being standard observational measures of toddler's social, cognitive, emotional, and physical behaviors. It is possible that an adaptation of measures used in Dr. Moore's 1982 Ph.D. dissertation (some of which were pilot tested at the UWM Child Care Center in 1982) might be appropriate. This needs to be thought about and looked into before we can go very far with this pre-proposal idea.

This project would welcome the active involvement of other possible visiting post-masters or post-doctoral scholars.