Do More Options Always Benefit the Users of Public Services? An Experimental Study of School Choice, Performance, and Satisfaction

Recent years have seen an increase in choice of provider in many public services, including education. Proponents of provider choice suggest that it increases users' satisfaction. However, insights from the psychology of choice overload suggest that too much choice can be detrimental The authors use a survey experiment to investigate the diet of provider choice on parents' satisfaction with schools (under performance declines and increases). The findings show that choice increases satisfaction and perceptions of fairness of the process compared with no choice. However, consistent with choice overload, increasing the number of options does not boost satisfaction. The findings have important implications for satisfaction as a measure of performance, because user satisfaction seems not to be independent of choice processes. This suggests lessons for designing delivery systems: although facilitating minimal user choice is preferable to having no choice, further increasing delivery options may not increase users' satisfaction.