Quality of the physical environment of early childhood development centres: Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley, Malaysia

Abstract

This study investigated the quality of the physical environment of officially registered early childhood development centres (ECDCs) in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley, Malaysia. Previous research shows that the quality of the physical environment in ECDCs is important for children’s development. However, there is little research about the quality of the physical environment in ECDCs in Malaysia. The main research question examined the physical environmental quality of ECDCs in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley. Other research questions investigated the differences in several independent constructs - ownership, building design, economic support, building type and ethnicity - on physical environmental qualities, the interaction between those constructs and physical environmental qualities, and the relationship between parents’ fees and physical environmental qualities. The study used a quantitative survey research design. The principal data collection method was administering an extensive assessment scale. Assessments were conducted on 80 randomly selected ECDCs using the above sampling frame and descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, two-way ANOVA and Pearson’s product-moment correlation were used for data analyses. The main finding of the current study was that the overall physical environmental quality for centres in Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley is low. Consistent with the overall finding, the results for 14 physical environment indicators revealed that none of them scored very high or high. Centres with higher parents’ fees evidence better physical environmental quality. The results of this study provide knowledge, information and criteria about physical environmental qualities to which planners, architects, centre owners and directors and interested childcare organisations can refer. Researchers interested in studying childcare in Malaysia can use the information in this study as a reference. This study shows relative weaknesses in Malaysian centres and hopefully this will lead to directions for improving the quality of their architectural design.