Evaluation of Peep and the Big Wide World Resources for Spanish-speaking Families

In 2012, Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) conducted an evaluation of the impact of Peep and the Big Wide World (Peep) resources on Spanish-speaking families with preschool-aged children. The three-pronged evaluation included a National Family Study in which 112 Spanish-speaking families who used the Peep resources were compared to Spanish-speaking families who did not use the Peep resources. It also included an In-Depth Family Study -- an experiment conducted in the metro Boston area in which 36 Spanish-speaking families who used the Peep resources were compared to Spanish-speaking families who did not use the Peep resources through in-person interviews and observations of playtime. The evaluation also included an Outreach Partner Study, with a survey of five public television stations (demonstration sites for engaging Latino families in informal science learning) and their community partners. The evaluation findings are summarized below: (1) Parents who used the Peep resources were better equipped to facilitate science and math exploration with their preschoolers, and thus were more confident, than parents who did not use PEEP (Impact I, Indicator a). Moreover, Peep provided an opportunity for positive family interactions. (2) Parents who used the Peep resources reported feeling more inclined to do math and science activities with their preschoolers than parents who were not exposed to the PEEP resources (Impact I, Indicator b). (3) Children and parents reported that children were engaged by the Peep episodes and activities (Impact II, Indicator a). (4) Children who used the Peep resources applied science process skills (including observation, prediction, and problem-solving) in the hands-on explorations of their environments (Impact II, Indicator b). (5) PEEP provided its community engagement partners appropriate resources for the families, both English-and Spanish-speaking, that they serve (Impact III, Indicators a-e). The appendix of this report includes the surveys and observation protocol used in the study.