The motivation for this study was the increased importance of early childhood education as an educational learning environment for children. The growing demand for early childhood institutions in Taiwan stems from the increased number of two-salary families and awareness of the importance of early education by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. Even though many educators and researchers have investigated best-practices for constructing quality child care programs and developing quality early childhood program standards and accreditation criteria to supervise these programs; however, parents' voices are often unheard. The researcher believes that parents, teachers, educators, government officers and policy makers must work together as a group to serve children and improve the quality of early childhood education programs. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to gain an understanding of parents' attitudes toward kindergarten assessment and the factors that enter into their selection of a kindergarten.

This study was conducted in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, the largest city in southern Taiwan. A stratified random sample of 480 parents with children aged 4–6 and enrolled in licensed kindergartens were recruited for this study. The instrument was a revised questionnaire based on Kaohsiung Kindergarten Assessment Criteria. The data analysis was conducted using SPSS 13.0, a Windows-based statistical software package. Each research question was subjected to different analysis methods. Descriptive statistics, oneway ANOVA, independent t-test and logistic regression analysis were used. Research results were as follows: (1) Taiwanese parents do care about a quality kindergarten, but at different levels. Parents have a more positive attitude toward teaching facilities and public safety and curriculum and child care subscales. (2) Parents differed by age and monthly household income in their attitudes toward kindergarten assessment. Parents also differed on practical and reputation/information factors when examined by parents' gender, education level, income and occupation. (3) There was no difference in parents' attitudes toward kindergarten assessment when examined by kindergarten types, but there were differences between public and private kindergarten parents' attitude toward practical and reputation/information factors. (4) Parents' most important kindergarten selection factors were concerned with safety and cleanliness of environment and facilities and curriculum and child care. In addition, parents' attitudes about the importance of teaching facilities and public safety and curriculum and child care concepts were the best predictor of parents' kindergarten selection. (5) In the open-ended question, most parents stated that the environment and teacher quality were important, especially the space and cleanness of the environment and the teacher personality. In addition, some parents also listed different criteria that related to license issues, curriculum, children preference, student quality and some practical factors.