How would you come up with a Survey of Young Learner Parents

[longshikong]

Since I want to start teaching kids on my own this fall here in China, I need a much clearer understanding of the attitudes and opinions of parents. It's always been Chinese teaching staff who communicate with parents on a regular basis. It's clear parents care little about the goings on in the school as long as their child appears to be learning something. Most don't even read or seek translation of the comments I write in the communication booklets I fill in after every lesson. They're just so trusting.

But what about when I start out on my own without an established school brand to fall back on and in a place where nobody knows me? The objective of my survey will be as much marketing as research. I'll need one survey for parents of preschoolers who haven't yet studied English and another for school-aged kids. If I can get parents to consider the value of placing their child, along with others in the company of a foreigner for a few hours a week (perhaps in one of their homes), then I may have an edge over the competition. At the very least, the survey will test parents on their receptiveness to this approach.

But just asking for perceptions of a particular private language school would be pointless. Instead, I'll need to start by getting a sense of the attitudes and education of the parents which will help contextualize the relationship between the following that I'll need to determine in how I write the questions:
a) the level of academic success parents want for their child and how much;
b) the child's attitude toward and the extent to which they fulfill that expectation;
c) the nature of parental support in attempting to achieve that expectation.

I guess the next step is to come up with a set of assumptions to prove or disprove before actually writing the questions.

Any feedback at this stage greatly appreciated.