Human Development and Family Sciences

Cara Kelly portrait

Cohort: 2024

Curriculum Vitae

View CV

Advisor(s):

Jason Hustedt

Specialization(s):

Early Childhood Education

Research Interest(s)

child development, early care and education programs and policies

Cara Kelly

Cara is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences. Cara’s research agenda broadly focuses on understanding whether and how ECE programs and policies best promote children’s development. Primarily, her research focuses on ECE quality, including gaining a deeper understanding of how ECE quality elements, like teacher-child interactions and classroom ratios, are related to children’s academic and social-emotional development. Through a collaborative partnership with ECE programs in two states, her mixed methods dissertation seeks to understand how teachers in the largest ECE program in the United States, Head Start, conceptualize and define classroom quality.

Recent Publications

  • Kelly, C. L., Slicker, G., & Hustedt, J. T. (2022). Family characteristics, parenting behaviors, and infants’ and toddlers’ social-emotional skills. Early Childhood Education Journal, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-022-01425-z
  • Kelly, C. L., Brock, L. L., Swanson, J. D., & Russell, L. (2022). Teacher engagement scale for professional development.Journal of Educational Issues, 8(1), 261-278. https://doi.org/10.5296/jei.v8i1.19636
  • Tang, J., Kelly, C. L., & Pic, A. (2021). Latent profile analysis of toddler parents’ perceptions of early care and education arrangements. Children and Youth Services Review, 129, 106206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106206

Recent Presentations

  • Slicker, G., Kelly, C. L., & Hustedt, J. T. (2023, April). Comparing early education center enrollment priorities based on participation in Arkansas’s state pre-k program. Paper presentation at the 2023 meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), April 13th-16th, Chicago, Illinois.
  • Kelly, C. L., Whitaker, A. A., & Burchinal, M. (2023, March). An empirical examination of the structure-process-outcomes model within Head Start programs. Paper presentation at the 2023 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), March 23rd-25th, Salt Lake City, Utah.
  • Kelly, C. L., Stoffers, M., Whitaker, A. A., Barnes, T. N., & Rutherford, T. (2023, March). Relationship between classroom quality and children with and without disabilities’ academic and behavioral outcomes. Flash talk presentation at the 2023 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD), March 23rd-25th, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Professional Experiences

  • Graduate Research Assistant, University of Delaware, 2019-present
  • Program Evaluator, College of Charleston, 2017-2019
  • Research Specialist, College of Charleston, 2016-2017
  • Research Association, University of Virginia, 2012-2017

Professional Memberships

  • Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD)
  • American Educational Research Association (AERA)
  • Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE)

Past Education

  • M.Ed. Teaching, Learning, and Advocacy, College of Charleston, 2016
  • B.S. Psychology, College of Charleston, 2012