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Parental Preferences Concerning Preschools

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Submitted By dude2cool03
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BA908 Journal Critique:
Parental Preferences Concerning Preschools

Submitted by:
Rick Elmann Labrador
Student

Submitted to:
Dr. Danilo M. Te
Marketing Management Professor

I. Summary

As we all know, the quality of a preschool varies from program to program. Selecting a preschool program is a complex decision that involves weighing cost and benefits. This decision as we know is also influenced by factors such as families’ needs and values also by realities such as cost and convenience. As emphasized, the aim of the study was to find the positioning of customer advantage of preschools.

A parents’ deciding factors in choosing a preschool, in a succinct breakdown, are with reference to the said five important attributes which are essential criteria differentiated according to importance placed upon school safety, teaching quality, distance of the preschool, schooling cost and adults to children ratio.

The study uses the method of conjoint analysis to identify the attributes and to segment parents into clusters. An initial focus group discussion (FGD) was conducted to obtain insights and opinions where thirteen parents participated and help narrow down the crucial attributes into only five as mentioned above. After the initial FGD was done, next was the process of conjoint analysis where a cluster sample of 400 parents where obtained and was formed into two main groups. The groups where the 200 respondents coming from the Talomo district which was within the city proper and the other 200 from Calinan district which was categorized outside the city proper.

As a result, it was found that there are significant differences in the segments of parents based on their preferences regarding the five attributes. And within the two groups, it was also found that there were two distinctive market segments within each of the group that was mentioned in the tentative conclusions. But, in most cases, 107 of the parents from Talomo who are categorized as within city premises are not cost-conscious. They consider safety measures, teachers’ training and qualification and adult to children ration as more important than the cost per year. On the other hand, the majority or 96 of the Calinan respondents which are categorized as outside the city premises, they consider cost per year more important than any other attribute.

Effectively, the overall conclusion is that there are two major segments of parents: Those that consider safety measures and quality as more important than cost and those that consider cost as more important than any other attributes.

II. Critique

Today many different types of agencies around the country operate preschool programs in a variety of settings. Some programs are operated by local schools. Some, are of migrant programs, are sponsored by federal agencies, and others are run by nonprofit groups such churches and charitable organizations. Some are provided by employers while others are owned by individuals or franchise chains. The quality of the preschool varies from program to program.

As a parent, you will want to assess how well a preschool program will satisfy your needs and preferences. When choosing a preschool program, it is important to consider the preschool staff; the preschools physical environment; and also, the characteristics of your child, which was a factor that was not given attention in this analysis but would have created a better impact.

For me, quality is an essential factor in determining a preschool program. The most important factor for parents in choosing a preschool is that the teachers are certified in early childhood education. Programs that emphasize academics, art and music also are essential criteria. These considerations were even more important than location, schedule and cost. Hence making me a part of the quality conscious segment in the analysis.

The analysis that was done in my opinion was respectfully effective in terms of cost and accuracy. Indeed the selected factors which was the result of the said initial FGD, created a big impact in consideration to parents deciding a preschool. But initially, I have a question about how they got the accuracy of their sample size and precision of estimates as it was not specifically mentioned in the journal. It is customary to describe the precision of estimates made from surveys by a “level of confidence” (or margin of error). The 95 percent confidence level for the survey is generally no greater than plus or minus four percentage points around any given percent reported for the entire sample (which was overall 400 in total).

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