Are Parents Satisfied with China’s Puhui Early Childhood Education? Evidence from a National Validation Study

ABSTRACT

Research Findings: This study aimed to explore parental satisfaction with Puhui early childhood education (ECE) service in China using evidence from a national validation study. The Parent Satisfaction with the Puhui Early Childhood Education Service Scale (PES) was developed and validated with 4,134 Chinese parents, who were sampled using a stratified cluster sampling method. First, an examination of the PES’s psychometric properties indicated that it was a reliable and valid scale with three constructs: government responsibility, kindergarten responsibility, and children’s development. Second, descriptive statistics revealed that Chinese parents were generally satisfied with the Puhui ECE service, being most satisfied with child development and least satisfied with government responsibility. Third, latent profile analysis generated three profiles: low, medium, and high satisfaction parents. Fourth, hierarchical regression analysis found that kindergarten rating and urbanicity were significant predictors of parent satisfaction. Practice or Policy: The findings imply that more policy attention should be paid to the quality and fairness of the Puhui ECE. Moreover, this study extends the research on parent satisfaction with ECE services and provides useful tools to evaluate universal ECE services in China and beyond.

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our appreciation to all the parents who participated in as well as to those who assisted in our study to provide related data. Also, we would like to thank Editage (www.editage.cn) for English language editing.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical Review

The study was approved by University Committee on Human Research Protection of East China Normal University with approval number “HR 072-2020” in advance of data collection.

Additional information

Funding

This research was fully funded by Major Projects of the National Social Science Fund of China [18ZDA336].