Abstract
Investigators argue that it is essential to consider why parents select non-parental child care arrangements in studying the effects of that care on a child’s development. Existing investigations explore family economic and demographic characteristics as determinants of child care choice. The present investigation examined a wide array of parents’ beliefs about characteristics of child care arrangements with the goal of determining if these could be reduced to coherent dimensions. The emergent belief sets were examined in relation to maternal and child characteristics as potential correlates. Two hundred and twenty respondents with children in non-parental care completed surveys. These individuals represent diverse ethnic and economic groups. Ratings of the importance of characteristics were factor analyzed resulting in a six factor solution: Practical Concerns, Institutional Structure, Curriculum, Scheduling, Child Centered Orientation and School Readiness. The latter factor, or program components promoting social skills and classroom behaviors associated with succeeding in school, was identified as the most important dimension. Parents describing their children as more difficult temperamentally and as less developmentally advanced tended to describe school readiness and curriculum issues as less important. Child characteristics accounted for unique variance above and beyond mothers’ characteristics in predicting to parental beliefs. Results suggest that parents as consumers possess coherent belief sets and are sensitive to children’s developmental needs in evaluating care arrangements.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bogat, G. A., & Gensheimer, L. K. (1986). Discrepancies between the attitudes and actions of parents choosing day care. Child Care Quarterly, 15, 159–169.
Bredekamp, S. (Ed.). (1992). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, DC: The National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (1998).The ecology of developmental processes. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 993–1028). New York: Wiley.
Bugenthal, D. B., & Johnson, C. (2000). Parental and child cognitions in the context of the family. Annual Review of Psychology, 51, 315–344.
Burchinal, M. R., & Nelson, L. (2000). Family selection and child care experiences: Implications for studies in child outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15, 385–411.
Cryer, D., & Burchinal, M. (1997). Parents as child care consumers. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 35–58.
Cryer, D., Tietze, W., & Wessels, H. (2002). Parents’ perceptions of their children’s child care: A cross-national comparison. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 17, 259–277.
Dix, T., & Branca, S. H. (2003). Parenting as a goal-regulation process. In L. Kuczynski (Ed.), Handbook of dynamics in parent–child relations (pp. 167–188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dowsett, C., & Huston, A. (2005). Predicting change in type of child care from mothers’ perceptions of child behavior. Poster presented at the 2005 Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. Atlanta, GA.
Early, D. M., & Burchinal, M. R. (2001). Early childhood care: Relations with family characteristics and preferred care characteristics. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 16, 475–497.
Fabrigar, L. R., Weggener, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., & Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 4, 272–299.
Fuller, B., Holloway, S. D., & Liang, X. (1996). Family selection of child-care centers: The influence of household support, ethnicity, and parental practices. Child Development, 67, 3320–3337.
Fuqua, R. W., & Labensohn, D. (1986). Parents as consumers of child care. Family Relations, 35, 295–303.
Gorsuch, R. L. (1983). Factor analysis (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Guadagnoli, E., & Velicer, W. (1988). Relation of sample size to the stability component patterns. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 265–275.
Hofferth, S. L., & Wissoker, D. A. (1992). Price, quality, and income in child care choice. The Journal of Human Resources, 27, 70–111.
Holloway, S. D., & Fuller, B. (1992). The great child care experiment: What are the lessons for school improvement. Educational Researcher, 21, 12–19.
Holloway, S. D., & Reichhart-Erickson, M. (1989). Child-care quality, family structure, and maternal expectations: Relationship to preschool children’s peer relations. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 10, 281–298.
Johansen, A. S., Leibowitz, A., & Waite, L. J. (1996). The importance of child-care characteristics to choice of care. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 759–772.
Kahn, J. H. (2006). Factor analysis in counseling psychology research, training, and practice: Principles, advances, and applications. The Counseling Psychologist, 34, 684–718.
Kontos, S., Howes, C., Shinn, M., & Galinsky, E. (1995). Quality in family child care and relative care. New York: Teachers College Press.
Kuczynski, L. (2003). Beyond bidirectionality: Bilateral conceptual frameworks for understanding dynamics in parent–child relations. In L. Kuczynski (Ed.), Handbook of dynamics in parent–child relations (pp. 3–24). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Leibowitz, A., Waite, L., & Witsberger, C. (1988). Child care for preschoolers: Differences by child’s age. Demography, 25, 205–220.
Liang, X., Fuller, B., & Singer, J. D. (2000). Ethnic differences in child care selection: The influence of family structure, parental practices, and home language. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 15, 357–384.
Long, P., Wilson, P., Kutnick, P., & Telford, L. (1996). Choice and childcare: A survey of parental perceptions and views. Early Child Development and Care, 119, 51–63.
MacCallum, R. C., Widaman, K. F., Zhang, S., & Hong, S. (1999). Sample size in factor analysis. Psychological Methods, 3, 84–89.
McClelland, M. M., & Morrison, F. J. (2003). The emergence of learning-related social skills in preschool children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 18, 206–224.
McGillicuddy-DeLisi, A. V., & Sigel, I. E. (1995). Parental beliefs. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 3. Status and social condition of parenting (pp. 333–358). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Mistry, J., Chaudhuri, J. H., & Diez, V. (2003). Ethnotheories of parenting: At the interface between culture and child development. In R. M. Lerner, F. Jacobs, & D. Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science, Vol. 1. . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (1997). Familial factors associated with characteristics of nonmaternal care for infants. Journal of Marriage and Family, 59, 389–408.
NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2006). Child-care effect sizes for the NICHD study of early child care and youth development. American Psychologist, 61, 99–116.
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Peyton, V., Jacobs, A., O’Brien, M., & Roy, C. (2001). Reasons for choosing child care: Associations with family factors, quality, and satisfaction. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 16, 191–208.
Raver, C. C. (2002). Emotions matter: Making the case for the role of young children’s emotional development for early school readiness. Social Policy Report, 16(3), 3–19.
Shlay, A. B., Tran, H., Weinraub, M., & Harmon, M. (2005). Teasing apart the child care conundrum: A factorial survey analysis of perceptions of child care quality, fair market and willingness to pay by low-income, African American parents. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 20, 393–416.
Shpancer, N., Bowden, J. M., Farrell, M. A., Pavlik, S. F., Robinson, M. N., Schwind, J. L., et al. (2002). The gap: Parental knowledge about day care. Early Child Development and Care, 172, 635–642.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Vandell, D. L., & Corasaniti, M. A. (1990). Variations in child care: Do they predict subsequent social, emotional, and cognitive differences? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 5, 555–572.
van den Boom, D. C., & Hoeksma, J. B. (1994). The effect of infant irritability on mother-infant interaction: A growth curve analysis. Developmental Psychology, 30, 581–590.
Acknowlegements
Portions of this research were supported by a grant from the Institute of Children, Youth and Families, University of Arizona. Many thanks to the Early Childhood Development and Learning Consortium (Drs. June Maker, Mary McCaslin, Shirin Antia, and David Yaden) at the University of Arizona.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gamble, W.C., Ewing, A.R. & Wilhlem, M.S. Parental Perceptions of Characteristics of Non-Parental Child Care: Belief Dimensions, Family and Child Correlates. J Child Fam Stud 18, 70–82 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-008-9208-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-008-9208-z