The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure of the Family Child Care Environment Rating Scale--Revised (FCCERS-R) in high-stakes contexts. The results of an exploratory factor analysis revealed three dimensions of quality on the FCCERS-R: (1) Activities/Materials, (2) Language/Interaction, and (3) Organization. This study also explored whether abridged versions of the FCCERS-R could serve as a proxy for the full instrument. In addition to subsets of FCCERS-R items created from the factor structure, purposively and randomly chosen item subsets were created. The purposively chosen subsets included 6-, 9-, and 12-item scales comprised of the items with the highest factor loading across the three factors, whereas the randomly chosen subsets consisted of 12 items. Results of a discriminant analysis showed that the factor subsets were poorer proxies for the total FCCERS-R score than were the other subsets, which demonstrated comparable internal consistencies and discriminant power as the full FCCERS-R when classifying homes into general quality categories. Implications for adopting shorter versions of the FCCERS-R are discussed. (author abstract)