Nicole Forry’s research focuses on child care subsidies and tax policies, child care quality, enhancing couple relationships, disparities in children’s development, and implementation and outcome evaluations.

Nicole has experience with both quantitative and qualitative methods. She recently co-led a research team in analyzing the association between child care subsidy receipt the year prior to kindergarten and entering kindergartener’s school readiness using administrative and educational data from the State of Maryland. Nicole is also co-PI on a study of parents’ decision-making process in selecting an early care and education arrangement using a longitudinal parent survey in the State of Minnesota. Through a research partnership in both Maryland and Minnesota, Nicole and colleagues use longitudinal parent surveys, matched cross-sectional provider surveys, and analyses of state administrative and educational data to examine: 1) low-income parents’ decision-making process in selecting an early care and education arrangement, 2) parents’ perceptions and definitions of high quality care and providers’ practices in three domains of quality: developmentally appropriate practices, supports for social-emotional development, and the family-provider relationship, and 3) continuity and stability of young children’s participation in early care and education arrangements.

Nicole has also conducted quantitative analyses using secondary datasets, including the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), and Quality Interventions for Early Care and Education (QUINCE). Her recent quantitative analyses have focused on: disparities in the development of young children across multiple domains of development, predictors of quality in home- and center-based settings, and profile analyses of quality in home-based child care and child care decision-making. Nicole qualitative work has included focus groups and semi-structured interviews used to supplement and enhance quantitative research.

Nicole also has experience with survey design and program evaluation. She currently serves as a team member for the design and implementation of the National Study of Early Care and Education. She also has a lead substantive role in the development of the Family-Provider Relationship Quality measure, a measure of providers’ attitudes, knowledge, and practices that support a positive family-provider relationship in early care and education settings. Through each of these projects, Nicole has developed or contributed to conceptual models, literature reviews, reviews of existing measures, and item development.