Predictors of Parent and Provider Satisfaction with Child Day Care Dimensions: A Comparison of Center-Based and Family Child Day Care.

Abstract

Predictors of satisfaction with specific aspects of child day care arrangements were evaluated for parents and care providers of children in full-time center-based child day care and family child care. Descriptive statistics for the predictors were compared by type of care. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that perceived social support derived from the care arrangement was the best predictor of parental satisfaction in both types of care. For center-based providers, satisfaction was best predicted by parent-provider agreement about the importance of specific care characteristics. Parent-provider agreement about traditional child-rearing values was associated with satisfaction for family child care providers. Almost universally, parents report that they are satisfied with their child day care arrangements [Bogat & Gensheimer 1986; Shinn et al. 1991]. Ninety-six percent of the parents in the 1990 National Child Care Survey (NCCS), for example, reported that they were satisfied with the arrangements they had made for their children [Hofferth et al. 1991]. This general finding applies across types of care, qualities of care, and regions of the United States [Mitchell et al. 1992]. At the same time, however, 26% of the parents in the NCCS said they wanted to change their child day care arrangements [Hofferth et al. 1991]. Single working parents living in poverty wanted to change their arrangements at even higher rates than did two-parent families [Brayfield et al. 1993]. This suggests that the literature on parental satisfaction with child day care is ambiguous at best. Little is known, for example, about what leads to parental satisfaction with care and whether these correlates of satisfaction vary by type of care arrangement. What accounts for this apparent contradiction in the literature on parents' reactions to child day care? Is it primarily a methodological artifact? For example, do different questions elicit differing degrees of social desirability, and thus reluctance to acknowledge unhappiness with one's care arrangements? Or, does this contradiction reveal shortcomings in the frameworks that guide research on parental satisfaction with child day care? The research reported here reflects the latter perspective. It departs from the majority of earlier research efforts in the following ways: (1) rather than focus on global assessments of satisfaction, we attempt to distinguish the specific dimensions of care that are associated with satisfaction from those that predict dissatisfaction; (2) rather than focus exclusively on level of satisfaction, we examine several proposed aspects of care that can influence variation in satisfaction in center-based or family child day care settings; (3) rather than study parents in isolation from the providers on whom their own satisfaction with care is likely to be highly dependent, we include assessments of both the providers' satisfaction with the child day care settings in which they work, and the contribution to parents' satisfaction made by the degree of concordance between parent and provider child-rearing attitudes and views of the important dimensions of child day care; and (4) rather than limiting data collection to single measurement period, we utilized a short-term longitudinal design in order to examine the role of dimensions viewed as important for the selection of the care arrangement (parents) and for good quality care (providers) at Time 1 in the prediction of satisfaction with the current care situation at Time 2. Satisfaction with Dimensions of Care Whereas previous research on parental satisfaction with care relied exclusively on assessments of overall satisfaction, recent studies have begun to use specific aspects of the care environment to assess satisfaction and to relate global and specific ratings [Mitchell et al. 1992]. In a study of 441 mothers using 46 child day care centers, for example, Shinn and her colleagues [1989] reported that mothers' overall satisfaction was associated with their child's experience (e. …