A Factorial Survey Analysis of Parent Preferences, Fair Market Value and Willingness to Pay

1. A Factorial Survey Analysis of Parent Preferences, Fair Market Value and Willingness to Pay Anne Shlay Marsha Weinraub Henry Tran Michelle Harmon

2. Three Goals for Today’s Presentation • Present an overview of the study questions and design • Findings • Implications

3. Study Questions • What characteristics of child care have the most influence on how parents rate child care situations? • Why is this important? • Want to know what characteristics matter to parents • How should we model this evaluation process? • Why is this important? • Want to use a method that captures how parents evaluate child care situations

4. What do Parents Want in a Child Care Program? • Frequent and warm child-caregiver interactions • Warm and involved caregivers • Caregivers w/ experience • Educational/developmental features may have some importance • Characteristics we know little about: religion, subsidy acceptance, type of care, characteristics of other children

5. Modeling How Parents Evaluate Child Care Situations • Analyzing child care characteristics independently • Child care characteristics in context

6. A Model of Parental Evaluation • Parents evaluate the worth or desirability of an arrangement by assessing the merit or desirability of characteristics that make up the arrangement relative to one another

7. Modeling Parental Evaluation: The Factorial Survey Method • The factorial survey approach permits: • an assessment of how people evaluate multi-dimensional phenomena • Combines the advantages of: • factor orthogonality of the experimental design • with the complexity/realism of the survey approach

8. Factorial Survey Method (cont’d) • Basic unit of analysis: The vignette • Can be thought of as a complete description of some complex phenomenon (e.g., child care) • It is described in terms of a single level for every dimension • Dimension – a discrete variable that defines a characteristic • Level – specifies how the dimensions vary • Levels are randomly assigned ensuring independence • Multivariate techniques are used to separate out the individual effects that each level has on the individual ratings

9. Unique to the Factorial Survey Design • Sample size = number of respondents ´ number of vignettes per respondent

10. Uses of the Factorial Survey • How nurses recognize and report child abuse (O’Toole et al., 1993) • How students define sexual harassment (Hunter & McClelland, 1991) • Gender differences in perception of neighborhood desirability (Shlay & DiGregorio, 1985) • Public attitudes toward appropriate punishment for crime (Durham, 1986) • In the current study, we use the method to show how low-income parents evaluate different child care arrangements

11. Designing the Factorial Surveys • Dimensions were identified through a lit. review on c.c. preferences and 4 focus grps. (white & AfAm working parents) • Dimensions: • Extrinsic – characteristics of c.c. that do not directly affect the child (e.g., location of c.c.) • Intrinsic – characteristics of c.c. that affect the child’s experience • Structural – characteristics that experts believe are correlated with process characteristics (can be viewed as a proxy for quality) • Process – processes between child and caregiver

12. Vignettes • [sample hand-out] • Model structure was used to define the placement of dimensions and fixed text • Structure was used to also define restrictions (e.g., neighbor care could not be accredited) • Levels were randomly selected

13. Factorial Survey Questions • (1) Perception of “goodness” – “How much would you like this child care for you and your family?” • (2) Fair weekly price – “In your view, what would be a fair weekly price for this child care. Please disregard whether or not you could afford the fair price.” • (3) Willingness to pay – “How much would you be willing to pay per week for this child care?”

14. Participants • Selected from SUS • Zip codes classified as low-income were identified • Contacted by the Temple University ISR • Eligility criteria: • (1) have a child under 4 years of age; • (2) be over 18 years of age; and • (3) be employed • CCPS eligibility criteria: • Agreed to participate in a future study • Income £ 80% of the MSA median for the Philadelphia area • N = 141 respondents; Total N = 141 ´ 30 = 4,230

15. Participants’ Demographics • 99% were mothers • Mean age: 31 years old • Mean age of youngest child: 3 • Marital status: 18% married and living w/ spouse; 72% single, never been married • Highest grade/year completed: 14% < than high school diploma/GED; 32% high school diploma/GED; 31% 1-2 years of college; 9% Bachelor’s degree or higher • 80% were currently employed averaging 38 hrs./wk.

16. Participants’ Demographics (cont’d) • Current care type: 53% center/preschool care; 24% relative care; 16% non-relative care; 7% maternal care • Children were in care for an avg. of 38 hrs./wk. over 5 days • Parents paid an avg. of $78/week for c.c. • Help paying for c.c.: 23% subsidy; 7% welfare; 14% tax credit; 14% help from relatives or friends • 99% of respondents reported being the primary decision-maker • 94% were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied w/ current c.c. arrangement

17. Procedures • All participants took the survey in the P&SR Lab • Each respondent completed 30 vignettes • About 45 minutes to complete

18. Analyses, Coding, and Statistical Measures • Statistical analyses: Multiple Regression • Regression of ratings on the set of dimensions and levels • Each level is dummy coded (1 if present and 0 if absent) • One level is omitted for each dimension to avoid linear dependency

19. Analyses, Coding, and Statistical Measures (cont’d) • The unstandardized regression coefficients represent the difference in rating between the vignettes containing the given level and vignettes containing the omitted level • Sample interpretation: for “Accepts subsidized children”, b = .159; indicates that when this level is present in the vignette, it raises the rating by .159 relative to the omitted category (a blank text in this case)

20. Additional Analysis • “Coding proportional to effect”

21. Distribution of Ratings • Mean goodness: 3.4 (56% of the arrangements were rated as 1, 2, or 3) • Mean fair price: $61-$80 weekly • Mean willingness to pay: $41-$60 weekly

22. Characteristics w/ Most Impact on Ratings • Frequent child-caregiver interactions (b = .45, .36, .35) • Planned activities for learning and playing (b = .19, .23, .21) • Safe and clean caregiving environment (b = .70, .62, .66) • Caregivers w/ a lot and some experience taking care of children (b = .41, .37, .33) • Caregivers w/ some experience taking care of children (b = .23, .23, .25) • Caregivers trained in child development and education (b = .32, .34, .29) • Caregivers w/ some training in child care (b = .14, .16, .14) • Caregivers who are warm (b = .33, .19, .27)

23. Characteristics w/ Moderate Impact • Licensed arrangements (b = .12, .12, .12) • Accredited arrangements (b = .10, .09, .11) • Arrangements w/ all AfAm children (b = .26, .08, .14) • Arrangements w/ racially mixed group of children (b = .27, .14, .18) • Arrangements w/ mix of low and high incomes (b = .11, .12, .16)

24. Characteristics w/ Small Impact • Commute times of 15 and 30 minutes from home to child care • Commute times of 15 and 30 minutes from child care to work • Arrangements that permit the use of a child care subsidy • Arrangements that are available during the evenings and weekends

25. Dimensions w/ Most Impact • Safety and sanitation practices of caregivers (b = .29, .27, .28) • Frequency of child-caregiver interactions (b = .23, .18, .18) • Caregivers’ experience (b = .17, .15, .15) • Caregivers’ training (b = .13, .14, .12) • Warmth of caregivers (b = .15, .08, .12) • License status of arrangements (b = .12, .13, .12)

26. Subgroup Analyses • Mothers with more education preferred arrangements that emphasized academic activities than mothers with less education (z = 1.55, 1.68*, 1.73*) • Mothers with less education may be particularly concerned with caregiver experience (z = -.79, -.16, -.88) • Full-time working mothers were more concerned with long commute times from home to child care than were part-time working mothers (z = 1.99*, 1.55, 1.66*) • Parents of older children (age 3 and older) desired arrangements with an academic curriculum more than parents of younger children (age 2 and younger) (z = -3.37*, -1.01, -.84)

27. Summary / Take-Home Messages • Evaluation of arrangement “packages” • What characteristics have the most impact on parents’ ratings of child care situations? • Short answer: Intrinsic over Extrinsic • Frequent child-caregiver interactions • Safe and sanitized caregiving environments • Caregivers w/ a lot of caregiving experience • Caregivers w/ training in child care • Warm caregivers • Inclusion of learning and playing activities

28. Summary / Thoughts (cont’d) • Parents were consistent in their rating behavior across the three measures • Parents value the characteristics that developmental psychologists have deemed as being related to quality • Possible differences in child care preferences between subgroups