The purpose of this paper is to present effective methods that parent's opinions apply to daycare center accreditation system actively. For the purpose, we investigate parents' perceptions of two research questions as follows;
1. Parents' perception...
The purpose of this paper is to present effective methods that parent's opinions apply to daycare center accreditation system actively. For the purpose, we investigate parents' perceptions of two research questions as follows;
1. Parents' perception of the daycare center accreditation system
2. Parents' perception of parent participation in the daycare center accreditation system
2-1. through a self-inspection committee consisting of a director and some parents
2-2. through the questionnaire or the telephone survey of Korean Childcare Accreditation Council
To identify parents' perceptions exactly, we sent a questionnaire to 267 parents. Among them, 148 and 119 parents have sent their children to 23 daycare centers accredited by the daycare center accreditation system and 18 centers not accredited, respectively. The total 41 daycare centers are located in either Seoul city or GyeongGi-Do. The questionnaire is based on the guide book of Korean Childcare Accreditation Council, interview with a staff, and its previous questionnaire for parents. It also includes many new questions that experts on early childhood education have recommended recently. According to accreditation of daycare center, we present the responses about the questionnaire, which have been analyzed in terms of frequency and percentage.
According to two research questions, we present some important results in the responses as following:
First, the parents who have sent their children to the accredited daycare centers have shown higher perception of the daycare center accreditation system than the others. More specifically, 44.6 percent of the parents have already known whether or not the daycare centers to which they have sent their children are accredited, whereas only 10.9 percent of the others have known it. Most of parents answered that it was necessary to accredit the daycare center regardless of the accreditation of their daycare centers. However, our results showed that it affected the selection of daycare center little whether or not their daycare center had been accredited. That is, they mostly had negative responses to the question that they would select or change their daycare center when the center was not accredited. Most of them selected the current daycare center for satisfying when they had visited it, for being recommended by close acquaintances or for being located near their house. Only 1.5 percent of them considered the accreditation of the daycare center as the primary criterion in the selection. More than half of them thought that it was important to improve service quality so that children could grow up in good health as well as in safe environment. Also, they selected the circumstance of daycare center as the most important item in the accreditation of daycare center. And most of them wanted to participate in the accreditation.
Second, most parents had positive responses to the parent's participation through the self-inspection committee. On the other hand, others who had negative responses posed a problem that only small number of parents could participate in the committee practically because of their heavy schedule. When we asked the degree of difficulty about contents and the terms in the questionnaire, most answered that they could understand the questionnaire easily and were satisfied with its contents. They, however, showed different answers to possibility of practical application of the questionnaire every questions. Also, they required to add or modify some questions to evaluate daycare centers more practically. To answer the questionnaire more effectively, they suggested that they should visit the daycare center before the accreditation. Of two parent participation methods used in Korean Childcare Accreditation Council, they preferred the questionnaire to the telephone survey because they could have enough time when answering. The telephone survey included another questions to the daycare center policy as well as the accreditation and had varied some questions at every call. These were considered as significant problems in accrediting the daycare center exactly. Most of them strongly wanted that their opinion would be reflected to the daycare center accreditation.
Based on our results, we are able to make the following contributions. First, daycare centers have to inform parents of the daycare center accreditation system actively and the accreditation acceptance of their daycare centers clearly. Also, for the effective parent participation in the system, they should present opportunities of parent's visiting and observing their daycare center more frequently. In addition, the daycare centers should do much for that parents can evaluate them practically through the close communication between families and daycare centers.
Second, parents need to be interested in the daycare center accreditation system which is the most reliable criterion in evaluating daycare centers. Being aware that parents are the main group of parent participation in the daycare center accreditation system, they should try to evaluate the daycare center that their children have attended, more objectively and actively.
Finally, it is required that Korean Childcare Accreditation Council systematically prepare plans for parent to participate in the daycare center accreditation system more effectively. That is, it should increase the number of parent who participate in the accreditation and encourage parents participate in the accreditation after observing their daycare center. Moreover, based on the merits and demerits in the questionnaires and telephone survey of the parents, the plans should be complemented for parents to participate more actively.