Journal article
Trent N. Cash, Daniel M. Oppenheimer
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Cite
APA
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Cash, T. N., & Oppenheimer, D. M. Parental rights or parental wrongs: Do parents know what factors influence their school choice decisions? (Under Review).
Chicago/Turabian
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Cash, Trent N., and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. “Parental Rights or Parental Wrongs: Do Parents Know What Factors Influence Their School Choice Decisions? (Under Review)” (n.d.).
MLA
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Cash, Trent N., and Daniel M. Oppenheimer. Parental Rights or Parental Wrongs: Do Parents Know What Factors Influence Their School Choice Decisions? (Under Review).
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{trent-a,
title = {Parental rights or parental wrongs: Do parents know what factors influence their school choice decisions? (Under Review)},
author = {Cash, Trent N. and Oppenheimer, Daniel M.}
}
Abstract
School choice initiatives are designed to transfer the power of educational decision-making to parents, under the assumption that parents will choose the schools that best meet their family’s needs. For this assumption to hold true, parents must have the cognitive and metacognitive resources to effectively compare schools based on the available information. Across four studies we find that participants making school choice decisions lack the metacognitive capacities to accurately self-report the weight they place on various school attributes, even when given aggregate school ratings. This suggests that parents making school choice decisions are likely to seek out and use the wrong information, thus leading to suboptimal choices. Implications for school choice, interpreting polling, educational policy, and metacognition research are discussed.
