About the Linkages Guide
The Linkages Guide features a series of questions related to early care and education, Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) and other quality improvement initiatives that can be addressed using the INQUIRE Data Elements . These questions can be used to:
- learn about the need for particular early care and education policies and practices;
- monitor the outputs of systemic improvement efforts such as a QRIS; or
- address research and evaluation questions about the effectiveness of services.
How-to Use the Linkages Guide
- Identify questions that are a priority for your state/locality.
- Review the list of data elements associated with your questions of interest and compare them to data collected in the state/locality to identify what data are and are not being collected.
- Develop and implement a plan to collect data elements that are not being collected that are needed to address high priority questions or reporting needs.
- Perform the suggested or alternative analysis using the recommended data elements.
- Use the results of the analysis to answer questions of interest and to help develop additional questions.