Are More Options Always a Good Thing for Citizens? An Experimental Study of School Choice, Performance and Satisfaction

Public services increasingly incorporate choice of provider, with public school choice systems being an important case. The dominant rationale is that parents’ satisfaction with the school will be greater when they have... [ view full abstract ]

Public services increasingly incorporate choice of provider, with public school choice systems being an important case. The dominant rationale is that parents’ satisfaction with the school will be greater when they have exercised choice, relative to no choice, and that satisfaction will be positively related to increasing the size of the choice set. However, the theory of choice-overload argues that as when the number of alternatives to choose form increases, decision-making becomes poorer, disappointment increases and regret occurs from forgone choices.

It has been argued that these adverse outcomes can be explained by three basic factors: information overload, unclear preferences and negative emotions. In particular, choosing in a context of many options often means disregarding potentially attractive alternatives. This literature stands in stark contrast to basic assumptions put forward by basic psychological theories of human motivation and economic theories of rational decision-making, that having more, rather than fewer, choices is necessarily more desirable and intrinsically motivating. In this context we ask whether increasing school choice leads citizens to become less satisfied with the schools they choose for their children?

To evaluate these hypotheses we conduct a survey experiment in which we vary choice sets composed of short descriptions of hypothetical schools presented to respondents, including a limited choice set, a large choice set, and a no-choice control condition. We subsequently vary the level of reported performance of the school (presenting either high or low performance report cards) and then measure perceptions of performance and overall satisfaction with the school. The aim is to mimic the often limited information and actual structure of choice typically presented to parents in jurisdictions offering school choice. We will run our experiment on an internet sample of approximately 800 US citizens that is broadly representative of the general population.

Analytically, we will test whether having choice leads to more satisfaction, when reported performance is high, and less satisfaction when reported performance is low. In addition, we will examine whether the number of choices presented to respondents influences subsequent evaluations of performance and satisfaction judgments. We expect our findings to have implications for theory of choice in public services and the behavioural consequences for citizens.