Parents' awareness and demand for parental participation activities in open daycare centers

The purpose of this study is to seek effective support measures by analyzing parents' perceptions and demands for parental participation activities in open daycare centers. To this end, a survey was conducted on 148 parents with children in an open daycare center in D city in December 2024, and the collected data were analyzed through frequency analysis, Borich demand analysis, and The Locus for Focus model. The results of the study are as follows. First, despite the low pre-awareness of the open daycare center, parents generally showed positive perceptions, such as understanding the life of the daycare center through parental participation activities and forming a partnership relationship with teachers and institutions. Second, parents were participating in various activities of open daycare centers, but they still recognized that there was a lot of unilateral information transmission, and demanded improvement for two-way communication. Accordingly, open daycare centers need to respond quickly to parents' opinions and questions and prepare a two-way interaction-oriented participation structure.