Citizen Perceptions of Government Service Quality: Evidence from Public Schools

Chingos, Matthew M.; Henderson, Marion; West, Martin R.

doi:10.1561/100.00011071

Cited by 55 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Along the same lines, James has argued that the negativity bias may depend on how consistent the performance information is with “personal experience or word of mouth” (2011b, 414). Consistent with this, Chingos, Henderson, and West () found that mostly citizens with few alternative sources of information about school performance had the strongest response to accountability ratings of school performance. Citizens can draw on multiple informal sources for performance information about the public sector.…”

Section: Negativity Bias or Positivity Bias?mentioning

confidence: 71%

Citizen (Dis)satisfaction: An Experimental Equivalence Framing Study

Olsen

2015

Public Administration Review

163

130

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Th is article introduces the importance of equivalence framing for understanding how satisfaction measures aff ect citizens' evaluation of public services. Does a 90 percent satisfaction rate have a diff erent eff ect than a logically equivalent 10 percent dissatisfaction rate? Two experiments were conducted on citizens' evaluations of hospital services in a large, nationally representative sample of Danish citizens. Both experiments found that exposing citizens to a patient dissatisfaction measure led to more negative views of public service than exposing them to a logically equivalent satisfaction metric. Th ere is some support for part of the shift in evaluations being caused by a negativity bias: dissatisfaction has a larger negative impact than satisfaction has a positive impact. Both professional experience at a hospital and prior exposure to satisfaction rates reduced the negative response to dissatisfaction rates. Th e results call for further study of equivalence framing of performance information. Practitioner Points• Th e valence (positive/negative) of performance information can have substantial eff ects on citizens' perception of public services-even if the underlying performance is exactly the same. • Presenting citizens with a dissatisfaction rate of 10 percent induces a much more negative evaluation of public services than presenting them with a logically equivalent satisfaction rate of 90 percent. • Policy makers must carefully consider how minor equivalent changes in the presentation of performance information can induce large shifts in citizens' perceptions of public service performance.

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Section: Negativity Bias or Positivity Bias?mentioning

confidence: 71%

Citizen (Dis)satisfaction: An Experimental Equivalence Framing Study

Olsen

2015

Public Administration Review

163

130

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“…Research indicates that district residents generally rate their local schools highly (West ) and that the variation in their assessments correlates with published proficiency rates and report card ratings (Charbonneau and Van Ryzin ; Favero and Meier ; West ). Research also indicates that state‐sanctioned performance ratings have a causal impact on district residents’ views regarding the quality of their school districts (Chingos, Henderson, and West ) and that the introduction of school and district report cards was associated with a decline in public support for schools in New York City (Jacobsen, Snyder, and Saultz ). Importantly, public perceptions of school quality were responsive to proficiency‐based performance measures despite the fact that much of the public clearly values administrative outcomes other than student achievement in math and reading (see, e.g., Jacobsen, Snyder, and Saultz ).…”

Section: Big Data and External Political Actorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

We All Need Help: “Big Data” and the Mismeasure of Public Administration

Lavertu

2015

Public Administration Review

111

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Rapid advances in our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate information are transforming public administration. Th is "big data" revolution presents opportunities for improving the management of public programs, but it also entails some risks. In addition to potentially magnifying well-known problems with public sector performance management-particularly the problem of goal displacement-the widespread dissemination of administrative data and performance information increasingly enables external political actors to peer into and evaluate the administration of public programs. Th e latter trend is consequential because external actors may have little sense of the validity of performance metrics and little understanding of the policy priorities they capture. Th e author illustrates these potential problems using recent research on U.S. primary and secondary education and suggests that public administration scholars could help improve governance in the data-rich future by informing the development and dissemination of organizational report cards that better capture the value that public agencies deliver.

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“…Research has found that test score based performance designations correlate well with parents' own evaluations of their children's schools (Charbonneau & Van Ryzin, 2012) and that parents update their evaluations to reflect new test score results (Chingos, Henderson, & West, 2012). It also indicates that the federal AYP metric had a significant impact on the behavior of Ohio voters.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The official designations are far more salient and widely known than the underlying performance metrics that determine them, and research has found that small changes in performance indeed have an impact on perceptions of school quality. For example, using an RD approach, Chingos, Henderson, and West () find that very small changes in student test scores can produce substantial movement in citizen perceptions of school quality when such changes alter the grade awarded by the state to local schools. Other studies document similar effects, showing that arbitrary changes in performance standards can influence parental satisfaction with local schools (Jacobsen, Saultz, & Snyder, ) and their willingness to make private financial contributions to support public education (Figlio & Kenny, )—even when these changes do not reflect any meaningful movement in actual student achievement.…”

Section: Empirical Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, research indicates that the federal AYP performance designations have had a significant impact on November school tax referenda in these very districts over the same time period (Kogan, Lavertu, & Peskowitz, 2016). Drawing on strong evidence that performance information disseminated via school "report cards" directly shapes voter perceptions about the quality of local schools (e.g., Chingos, Henderson, & West, 2012;Jacobsen, Saultz, & Snyder, 2013), we hypothesize that the likelihood of turnover increases among board members and superintendents when performance ratings signal low student achievement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Do School Report Cards Produce Accountability Through the Ballot Box?

Kogan¹,

Lavertu²,

Peskowitz³

2016

J Policy Anal Manage

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Public education has been transformed by the widespread adoption of accountability systems that involve the dissemination of school district performance information. Using data from Ohio, we examine if elections serve as one channel through which these accountability systems might lead to improvements in educational quality. We find little evidence that poor performance on widely disseminated state and federal indicators has an impact on school board turnover, the vote share of sitting school board members, or superintendent tenure, suggesting that the dissemination of district performance information puts little (if any) electoral pressure on elected officials to improve student achievement.

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Citizen Perceptions of Government Service Quality: Evidence from Public Schools

Cited by 55 publications

References 59 publications

Citizen (Dis)satisfaction: An Experimental Equivalence Framing Study

Citizen (Dis)satisfaction: An Experimental Equivalence Framing Study

We All Need Help: “Big Data” and the Mismeasure of Public Administration

Do School Report Cards Produce Accountability Through the Ballot Box?

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