Keywords
participatory methods - reading - listening framework - children's voices
Learning Outcomes: As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to:
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Justify why it is important to include the voices of young children in research.
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Explain the concept of a “listening framework” and apply it to various research contexts.
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Summarize the issues arising when conducting participatory research with young children.
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Discuss how to design research activities that position children as “active” and “expert”
participants.
Over the last two decades, it has become increasingly recognized that it is important
to include the views and experiences of young children in research. Work in the sociology
of childhood (see for example James & Prout, 2015) has challenged traditional views
of what it is like to be a child and raised an understanding of how such constructions
vary across time, place, and cultures. From this perspective, children are now seen
as competent social actors, who can alter the conditions of their own childhood and
for whom adult definitions of their needs are not wholly sufficient (Mayall, 2002).
Given this shift, it was once common for researchers to consider children below the
age of about 7 as “not viable as interviewees” due to their young age (Kellett & Ding,
2004, p. 167). Over time researchers have come to acknowledge that if we want to receive
valid information about children's views, then we must find ways to talk directly
to the children themselves (Scott, 2000; Langston et al, 2004). This is important
as previous studies have indicated that young children inhabit a social world of which
adults “have only a limited understanding” (Cremin & Slatter, 2004, p. 458). This
was demonstrated in Scott's (1997) earlier research, which showed that parents tend
to portray a much “rosier” picture of their children's health and well-being than
the children themselves, thus emphasizing the need to find ways to access children's
voices in research.
The belief that research should be done with children rather than on children has resulted in the development of participatory research methods, specifically
designed to access the voices of children. Participatory research has been defined
as “research designs, methods, and frameworks that use systematic inquiry in direct
collaboration with those affected by an issue being studied for the purpose of action
or change” (Vaughn & Jacquez, 2020, p. 1). However, despite the growing popularity
of participatory methods in social and educational research, there remains some doubt
as to how such a methodology might be applied to data collection with very young children.
The purpose of this article is to explore the issues arising when research is designed
to collect data directly from young children, with a view to supporting other researchers
and practitioners in designing research activities that are ethical and methodologically
sound. In order to do this, this article presents an example of a research design
to investigate 5- to 6-year-old children's perceptions of reading.
This study (Newhouse, 2024) was inspired by the first author's role as a primary school
teacher and later as a special needs coordinator in a primary school in England over
the period 2005 to 2021. During that time, she saw a significant change in the way
children from 4 to 7 years old were taught to read, which moved from a broad, multistrategy
approach to an increasingly structured approach dominated by a focus on systematic
synthetic phonics. In 2012, the Phonics Screening Check (PSC) was introduced; this
is an assessment tool designed to measure each Year 1 (aged 5–6 years) child's ability
to decode using synthetic phonics. This test is comprised of 40 words, half of which
are pseudo words, meaning these are “made up” words that conform to regular phonological
patterns representing the grapheme-phoneme-correspondences taught sequentially through
synthetic phonics instruction. The purpose of this study was to explore Year 1 children's
perceptions of reading and understand the factors that influenced their perceptions,
at this point in their school careers.
The aim of this research demanded that a participatory approach be used to collect
data directly from the children themselves. The design of the research tools was initially
governed by two factors. First, as the intention was to gain a holistic understanding
of how the children perceived reading and the different factors that molded their
views, it was necessary to create a broad range of data collection tools that would
explore what the children said about reading and how they acted during reading-related
activities. In order to provide context to this data, parents and teachers were also
interviewed. Using multiple tools also allowed the data to be triangulated, which
is an important way of developing trustworthiness in case study research (Yin, 2013;
Heesen et al., 2019). Secondly, there was a need to create data collection tools that
children of this age would be happy to engage with and which would enable their voices
to be heard.
This clinical tutorial will support researchers in a variety of fields, including
health, education, social work, and so on, to design studies that allow children to
participate in research as active respondents. The article begins with a review of
relevant literature concerning the design and implementation of participatory research
methods with young children. The issues raised in the literature are then illustrated
in a case study, which demonstrates how children can be positioned as “active” in
the research process, and “expert” in matters that affect them and their lives.
Review of the Literature
This review of the literature reflects on the specific issues that arise, and need
to be addressed when designing research tools to access the voices of young children.
Beginning with an introduction to the Mosaic Approach, as an example of a “listening
framework,” the review emphasizes the importance of considering the affordance and
limitations of specific activities, as well as factors such as the role of the researcher
when implementing research activities with young children.
The Mosaic Approach
In recent years, many participatory studies with young children have drawn on the
principles of the Mosaic Approach (Clark & Moss, 2001, 2011; Clark, 2017). This is
a collection of methods used to access the views of participants for whom conventional
data collection tools may not be appropriate. The Mosaic Approach features two important
strands: firstly, it is an array of data collection tools based on a “framework of
listening” and, secondly, it advocates the careful piecing together of the information
gathered, including reflection and interpretation. Clark (2017) describes listening
in this context as an active process of communication involving hearing, interpreting,
and constructing meanings which should not be limited to the spoken word. The framework
of listening revolves around a number of important principles. These include that
it is a multimethod approach recognizing the different voices of the children; that
it treats children as experts and agents in their own lives; that it is reflective
in including the views of children, practitioners, and parents in addressing interpretation;
and that it is adaptable in that it can be applied in a variety of early childhood
contexts. A framework of listening, adapted from this concept, but created specifically
for this study, is set out later in this article.
In their first study using this approach, Clark and Moss (2001) set out to discover
what it was like for young children younger than 5 years to be in their nursery environment.
Data collection tools included observation and child conferencing, as well as more
innovative participatory methods such as the use of cameras, tours, and mapping. Together
the data collected, using the various tools, allowed the creation of a living picture
of what it was like for the children to be in that environment. Observations were
recorded as field notes and researchers created narrative accounts centered on groups
of children playing together. The records of play were then discussed with practitioners
and the children themselves. Other components of the mosaic included child-led tours
of the institution, role-play activities, and children's own maps and drawings of
the environment. The second stage of this approach was to bring together all of the
data collected from each part of the mosaic. This was achieved by using thematic analysis,
where themes that appeared most frequently across all the data sets were picked out.
Since this first study, elements of the Mosaic Approach have been developed by other
researchers and practitioners to support them in listening to young children's perspectives
in various contexts including social work (Holland, 2004). Many educational researchers
have also drawn on elements of the Mosaic Approach, especially when seeking to address
young children's views on literacy. For example, mosaic-style methods were used to
explore what children (aged 6–16) thought literacy was, in the context of a community-centered
library in England (Pahl & Allan, 2011). Described as a participatory project, children
led much of the research process themselves, using tools such as community walks,
auditing literacy materials in local shops, using video cameras, and making scrapbooks.
One key finding from this study was that the children's perceptions of literacy included
some practices that were invisible to adults. For example, Pahl and Allan (2011) found
that children saw literacy as a connective practice that linked aspects of their everyday
lives.
There is much to be learned from looking at the way the Mosaic Approach has enabled
researchers to improve their understanding of children's perspectives in a range of
contexts, often resulting in new or unexpected findings. However, developing an array
of research methods is not sufficient in itself to ensure that young children's voices
are expressed and heard. Punch (2002) warns that we must be careful not to assume
that research techniques are methodologically robust simply because they are “child-friendly”
but that there is a need “to critically reflect on the affordances and limitations
of such techniques, so as to be able to defend the viability of our own research design”
(Levy & Thompson, 2015, p. 113). It is therefore important to understand what is needed
within a research activity in order for it to be effective in eliciting the voices
of young children.
Engaging Young Participants in Conversations
Much of the literature reporting participatory studies with young children has considered
various ways in which to encourage children to talk—in other words, to design activities
that are alternatives to the traditional interview. In particular, previous studies
have indicated that some researchers have used objects and pictures to encourage two-way
communication between adults and children. Flewitt (2014), for example, noted that
“having something to share which is of interest to the interviewer and the interviewee(s)
can create a reciprocity and a bond of communication which encourages common engagement”
(2014, p. 144). This “something to share” might take the form of props or objects,
pens and paper, sand, pictures, or even the use of drama or storytelling (Flewitt,
2014). Other researchers have shown how the use of third-party, or projection techniques,
can be particularly effective when encouraging young children to talk. An example
of this is Levy's (2011) use of interview-with-a-puppet activities. Levy based her
study on the concept of the interview but sought new interview-based tools that would
generate valid data from children as young as 3 years old. A key part of this was
the use of a play-orientated structure to provide a familiar context for the children.
Levy chose third-party techniques using a puppet (Charlie Chick) who invited the children
to demonstrate to the puppet what reading is and to describe how they felt about reading.
Levy also used small-world play materials and familiar play equipment to encourage
a conversation about the children's perceptions of screen and paper-based literacy,
especially in relation to their home environment.
Creating a distinction between the researcher's role and that of a teacher also helped
to reduce the expectation from the pupil that the researcher would provide guidance
to them in the way a teacher might. Freeman and Mathison (2009), for example, describe
the principle of reciprocity in which the child is seen to gain something themselves
from the research; this notion of reciprocity can help reduce the potential power
inequality between the child and the adult researcher (Eder & Fingerson, 2003). Moreover,
the use of third-party or projection techniques has been seen to be effective in helping
overcome the temptation for children to say what they think the adult wants to hear
(Cohen et al., 2011).
Similarly, using storytelling, where perceptions can also be expressed in the third
person, has been found to be particularly advantageous as it allows the dialogue to
be led by the interviewee. This technique also enables many children to engage effectively
in research activity, regardless of their literacy attainment and is therefore socially
inclusive and suitable for children in the early stages of their education. This was
demonstrated in the work of Davis (2007), who investigated why some primary school-aged
children like or dislike reading. Davis (2007) compared the use of traditional interviews
with the use of storytelling activities and found the latter to be particularly revealing
when used with children aged 6 to 8 who had reading ages below 8 years and 6 months.
An alternative approach was used by Hanke (2014), who created incomplete cartoon-style
drawings representing some familiar features of guided reading.[1] The researcher was present as groups of children completed the drawings, and in
some cases mediated what they wanted to draw. Hanke (2014) commented that the process
of completing these drawings enabled young pupils to make unexpected insights regarding
their guided reading sessions. This resonates with Clark's assertion (2017) that when
creating activities to listen to children, researchers do not necessarily need to
involve the spoken word.
The literature presented in this section has shown how researchers have not only used
artifacts (including storytelling) within their research design to motivate and engage
young children, but as methodological instruments to facilitate talk and promote the
acquisition of reliable data from young children. Building on this, the next section
explores how this literature was influential in designing the tools used in the case
study.
Developing Methods for the Case Study
As with all research, this study was designed to meet a specific set of research needs;
however, the commitment to listen to young children's voices meant that a number of
particular considerations were made during the methodological design of this study.
Drawing on the work of Clark and Moss (2001) and Levy (2011), it was felt that some
kind of mosaic of activity would allow the data to be triangulated and therefore ensure
that the children's voices were being reliably interpreted. That meant that the study
would include a variety of child-friendly activities, but it was recognized from the
outset that understanding the characteristics of this particular age group was important
when designing the tools. For example, Levy (2011) successfully used a glove puppet
in her research with 3- to 5-year-olds, but there was a danger that the slightly older
children in the case study may have felt patronized if asked to talk to a puppet.
Given that there were clear advantages in using some kind of third-party approach,
this study therefore used an unfinished storybook as a conduit between researcher
and child, as discussed in the next section.
The design of the research was also influenced by the fact that this study was not
looking at a phenomenon at a particular point in time (as seen in the Clark & Moss
study) or attempting to compare children's responses across time or across cohorts
(as seen in the Levy study), but was seeking to understand how certain factors had
influenced children's perspectives. This had implications for aspects of the research
design. Firstly, it was decided that the activities would be carried out on a one-to-one
basis with each child, rather than using group or collaborative tasks such as focus
groups, child conferencing, or filmmaking. Secondly, given that the study sought to
explore who or what influenced the perceptions of reading that these children held,
it was important to hear the views of parents and teaching staff and to gather and
analyze some of the contextual data around each child's experiences of reading.
In brief, this study was made up of a mosaic of different research activities, including
contextual interviews with parents and teachers. The use of participatory techniques
involving age-appropriate activities and materials ensured that the children's voices
were elicited and heard; the data from the children included drawings, talk, the outcome
of sorting objects, photographs, and observations of the children. The next section
provides a detailed overview of the various activities designed to access children's
voices in this study.
Case Study: Designing Research Tools to Understand the Influence of Synthetic Phonics
Teaching on Children's Perceptions of Reading
Case Study: Designing Research Tools to Understand the Influence of Synthetic Phonics
Teaching on Children's Perceptions of Reading
The design for this study was a collective case study, based within a single Year
1 class, in a primary school in England. Year 1 is the second year of formal education
in England when children are 5 or 6 years old. Children are required to pass the Phonics
Screening Check during the summer term of that year. Failure to achieve the given
pass mark results in pupils having to re-sit the test the following year. The school
was selected purposely as it was the school where the first author worked as a special
needs coordinator. Seven participants were selected based on their range of ages within
the class, gender and family position, and reading attainment (according to teacher's
assessment). All children were monolingual and spoke English as their first language
which reflected the population of this school. One child was of mixed cultural heritage.
[Table 1] sets out the demographic information for each child participant.
Table 1
Demographic information
|
Name (pseudonym)
|
Gender
|
Age at start of study
|
Position within the family
|
Reading attainment
|
|
Beth
|
Female
|
5 y 8 mo
|
Youngest of 2 siblings
|
Below age-related expectations
|
|
Katie
|
Female
|
5 y 10 mo
|
Oldest of 2 siblings
|
At age-related expectations
|
|
Lily
|
Female
|
6 y 5 mo
|
Oldest of 2 siblings
|
At age-related expectations
|
|
Maddy
|
Female
|
6 y 6 mo
|
Youngest of 3 siblings
|
Above age-related expectations
|
|
Robbie
|
Male
|
6 y 7 mo
|
Youngest of 2 siblings
|
Above age-related expectations
|
|
Tommy
|
Male
|
6 y 6 mo
|
Oldest of 2 siblings
Also had older half-brother
|
Above age-related expectations
|
|
Zac
|
Male
|
6 y 6 mo
|
Third of 4 siblings
|
At age-related expectations
|
A framework of listening was created specifically for this study, represented in [Fig. 1] by a Venn diagram which shows three interlocking circles, labeled as child-focused
methods, home-focused methods, and school-focused methods. Within the center circle
are data collection tools that acquire data directly from the child participant, using
a range of participatory tools allowing each child to demonstrate their perceptions
of reading, through talking, drawing, using pictures, and direct observations of the
child during school activities. This was designed to give a broad balance between
what the child said and what the child did. These tools will be described fully below.
Figure 1 The listening framework.
However, this study also recognized the significance of the other voices involved
in the child's life and learning, and therefore it was important to collect data from
the two most relevant contexts for that child—the home and the school. Overlapping
areas of the diagram below (see [Fig. 1]) represent where data collection tools cross between domains, such as during observations
of the children within the classroom or where the children used disposable cameras
to take pictures of reading at home.
Child-Focused Methods
All the child-focused research activities described in this section, apart from the
observations of the children within the class, were implemented with one child at
a time with the researcher, and all were audio recorded.
The Story Book Activity
The child-focused interviews in this study were built around a custom-made “incomplete”
storybook. The story contained either a female or male child character, and each participant
was asked to choose which version they wanted to work with. It was important to make
the characters as closely identifiable with the participant's own experiences and
understanding of themselves so that they could put themselves in that character's
shoes. The children were able to choose from a boy or girl version and no assumptions
were made about which gender they would choose. Amy and the Alien and Andy and the Alien were stories about an alien who came to Earth and saw a young child, of a similar
age to the participants, reading in the garden. The alien, who had no concept of what
reading was, then asked a series of questions within the context of the story (see
[Fig. 2] for an excerpt from the book). Each participant was responsible for Amy or Andy's
responses, filling in the blank spaces facing the narrative by talking, writing (or
asking the researcher to scribe), or drawing. The children's perceptions of reading
were further explored through the activities engendered in the book, such as asking
them to name or draw an object that helps people to read and giving them the opportunity
to create an ending for the story.
Figure 2 Amy and the Alien.
The questions and activities in the book were structured around six central questions:
What is reading? Why do you read? Where do you read? How do you learn to read? Who
or what helps you learn to read? What do you like/dislike about reading?
Picture-Sorting Activities
The Picture-Sorting activities were composed of three separate activities that used
different sets of picture cards. These were called Is it reading? Who can read best? and Fake or real words?
In the first activity, the participants were given a set of 11 picture cards and asked
to sort them into two columns, one for objects that the children thought involved
reading and the other for those that did not involve reading. The images on the cards
included (1) a page from a comic book; (2) a set of book front covers; (3) a phone
screen with text conversation visible; (4) an iPad with a Lego game on the screen;
(5) a page from a reading scheme book which would have been familiar to the children;
(6) a story book with pictures but no words; (7) a set of fake words; (8) a bike;
(9) a sound mat with phonics sounds and matching pictures that children used in their
classroom; (10) a McDonald's sign; and (11) a pizza.
The cards, therefore, included objects that quite clearly did not involve reading,
including the bike and pizza, and those that more obviously did, such as the reading
scheme book. However, there were other images for which the answer to the question
̔does it involve reading̕ was less certain.
The intention of this activity was to explore the contexts in which the children believed
reading was taking place. For example, the activity investigated if the children believed
that a book without words could still be read and if they thought a phone or tablet
with words could be read. Prompts were used to ask children to elaborate on their
decisions or to ask what they were thinking when they hesitated over a particular
choice; for example, “What were you looking for, when you were thinking about what
goes where?”
The second picture activity, Who can read best? explored the participants' understanding of what made someone a good reader and how
being a good reader might be perceived. This activity featured three pictures—a photograph
of a young girl, a photograph of a young adult or teenager, and a photograph of an
older lady. The children were asked to order the pictures from the most able reader
to the least able reader and explain the reason for their choices. All three pictures
were of females. It was important to ensure that the characters in the pictures were
of the same race and gender so that children were making decisions based on the age
and “perceived” experience of the people in the photos, rather than on other factors
such as gender. Again, the pictures were of white people because this most closely
reflected the ethnic background of the participants. There was no specific reason
for choosing female rather than male faces. Follow-up questions included asking the
participants how they would know who the best reader was and how they could find out.
The third activity, Fake or real words?, mimicked a task seen in the class in preparation for the PSC. The children were
given a set of words—some pseudo and some real—and asked to put them under a treasure
chest if they thought they were real words and under a dustbin if they thought they
were “fake.” The fake words such as “prout,” “franp,” “taib,” and “sprake” were mixed
with real words including “beef,” “snake,” “trace,” and “shout” (see [Fig. 3]). The children were asked to talk about their reasons for making their choices in
order to understand the strategies they were using to make decisions when they did
not recognize the word they had sounded out.
Figure 3 Sorting fake and real words.
Disposable Camera Activity
This activity provided an insight into reading which took place within the children's
homes and served as a stimulus for a discussion about reading in the home with both
the children and their parents. It was important that these photographs were used
as a prompt for conversation, rather than exclusively analyzing the photographs themselves.
Each child was sent home with a disposable camera to take pictures of “reading” at
home. The children were shown how to use the camera and instructions for parents on
how they could support them if necessary were also included. The photographs were
developed and printed and used to prompt discussion with each child and later with
their parents.
Reading Activity
The children were asked to choose one book from a set of four books (see [Fig. 4]) to read and discuss with the researcher. The books were deliberately not chosen
from the children's classroom, as an attempt was made to avoid including very familiar
books in the selection, However, the way the children interacted with these texts
and the choices they made about which book to read were more important than making
sure the books were unfamiliar. It was recognized from the outset that the children
may have seen some of the books before; for example, some of the participants recognized
Winnie the Witch from the TV series.
Figure 4 Texts offered for reading activity.
The books varied in reading difficulty from a picture book with a few words on each
page to a chapter book, but the children were not given any direction as to which
they should choose. After looking at each book, they talked about why they had chosen
that one and they then read a few pages. Notes were made on a transcript about their
reading and the strategies they were using. As they were reading, the children were
encouraged to talk about what was happening in the text and what they thought might
happen next. In the end, there was a discussion about the kinds of books they enjoyed
the most and whether they preferred to read at school or at home.
Observations
Observations took place across the whole data collection period in the Year 1 classroom.
Observations of phonics lessons were focused on the period before the phonics screening
check in mid-June as phonics was not taught as frequently after this time. Twelve
lessons of various durations and different subjects were observed. The focus during
each observation was to determine how each child engaged with reading within the context
of each lesson, whether this was during a structured lesson with the whole class,
while participating in group activities, or during less structured activities. On
a few occasions, the purpose of the observation was more specific, such as observing
a particular child during a guided reading session, as signs of anxiety had been identified
in an earlier observation. Field notes were taken and these were then written up into
a lesson report. The principal researcher used her own system for taking field notes
which were standardized across the different observations. It included organizing
the notes into sections such as “what the child did,” “what the child said,” and the
context in which this happened. These reports contained the context of the lesson,
so that it was clear what the children were being asked to do and how and where they
were learning, in order to put their words or actions into context.
School-Focused Methods
School-focused data collection included all data collection which was sourced directly
from the school and its staff. The data here were rarely linked to an individual child
but included information on, for example, the ways in which children were taught to
read, strategies to support children, and teachers' perceptions of phonics instruction.
This was particularly important when considering what or who influenced the children's
perceptions of reading. Semistructured interviews were conducted with the class teacher
and class teaching assistant to probe their understanding of the key skills and strategies
they thought were required for reading and to ask about their own experiences of learning
to read.
Various school documentation relating to reading and phonics was explored, including
literature sent home to parents and carers that outlined the school's approach to
teaching reading and how the child should be supported at home. Written documentation
was analyzed in the same way as audio transcripts. As this was regarded as supplementary
data, techniques such as discourse analysis were not used. However, these data were
analyzed in conjunction with informal discussions which were held with the teacher
and the teaching assistant to further ascertain how reading and phonics were taught,
assessed, and timetabled. These conversations were ongoing throughout the research
period and were recorded as field notes.
Home-Focused Methods
One parent of each child was asked to participate in a one-to-one semistructured interview.
Key topics for the parent interview included (1) what their child liked to read; (2)
who the child liked to read with or to; (3) whether their child thought of themselves
as a good reader; (4) how keen their child was to read including any reluctance or
anxieties over reading; (5) whether their attitude to reading had changed since starting
in Year 1; (6) reading activities taking place in the home; (7) parents' own experiences
of learning to read; and (8) how confident they felt in supporting their child to
learn to read.
The same parent was then asked to look at the photographs that their child had taken
with the disposable cameras. Questions were asked about the circumstances and choices
made by the child in taking these pictures. The children had already seen and discussed
the photographs; so, some of the questions were following on from the child's comments.
Ethical Considerations
This article has so far discussed methodological considerations in designing participatory
research with young children. Given that issues such as managing power imbalances
between researcher and child have been raised a number of times, it is clear that
ethical considerations are an essential component of this research methodology, both
in terms of tool design and data collection conduct. The ethics of working with children
as young as 5 and 6 was therefore a fundamental consideration within the case study.
Of particular importance was addressing the potential power imbalance between researcher
and child participants. Designing tools that would minimize the power imbalance was
a methodological consideration as already discussed; however, it was also an ethical
one as it prevented the children from being directly questioned about themselves.
This is important as it is unlikely that a young child would be able to tell an adult
researcher if they were uncomfortable in being asked direct questions about themselves.
Techniques to minimize the power imbalance included the use of third-party activities,
such as asking the child to role-play a character, or focusing on pictures or objects
that the children were asked to sort or order. Such techniques have been shown to
help minimize the effects of a power imbalance in research (Cohen et al., 2011; Levy,
2011). Importantly, when more direct questioning was used with the children, care
was taken to ensure that the children were comfortable and that they were aware that
they could refrain from answering a question if they wished.
Case Study: Discussion
Findings from this study indicated that the research design was highly effective in
encouraging these children to share their views and perspectives on reading. The following
section discusses this firstly in relation to the notion of giving children power
and agency and then in relation to the specific ways in which the research design
allowed the child's voice to be heard. The discussion is concluded with a reflection
on the value of including the voices of salient adults within a study that is designed
to hear the voice of the child.
The Child as the Expert
A significant finding from this study was the importance of treating the child participant
as an expert within this area of research. This entailed giving the child power and
agency within the data collection activities and in respecting their ability to reason
and express their responses to the questions.
In the story book activity, for example, the children were asked to play the role
of a girl or boy informing the alien about reading. There were two ways in which this
gave the children power and agency over their responses. Firstly, they were able to
answer the alien's questions from the standpoint of the knowledgeable figure who was
already acquainted with reading and therefore their answers were valued by the alien.
Secondly, the researcher asked the children for their help in writing this story,
positioning them as joint authors in creating the book. This not only helped deflect
from the power imbalance between the researcher and the children but put the child
in the position of expert in this context.
In activities where children were given power, such as the story book activity, their
responses were mostly creative and eloquent. The children used information from their
personal experiences with reading at home and at school, to inform their responses
to the alien's questions. Their responses also demonstrated a sense of empathy toward
the alien's situation. All the children were able to imagine a world for the alien
outside the confines of the story, suggesting, for example, that he goes home and
reads to his mum and dad or to his friends. This showed how the children were drawing
on their own context and experience when responding to the alien. Throughout the conversation,
they switched freely between responding as themselves and talking as the character
by saying what they would do as well as what Amy or Andy would do, which suggested that the activity
was successful in eliciting what the children believed, without directly questioning
them about themselves.
It was notable, however, that in activities that more closely resembled a task they
might be set in school, such as in the Is it reading? activity where they were asked to sort pictures into columns, some of the children
started to question if they were correct or not, and even asked for the researcher
to tell them what the other children had done. During this activity, Zac insisted
on leaving one of his pictures in the middle because he was reluctant to commit, risking
the possibility of “getting it wrong.” Sorting pictures is something the children
did quite frequently in the class and it seemed that the closer the activity was to
what they perceived to be schoolwork, the more concerned they were with being right
and the less confident they appeared in offering their own opinions. In contrast with
the story book activity, the children's sense of agency seemed to diminish during
the sorting activities, as they became more concerned with completing a task successfully.
This has substantial implications for others who are attempting to design participatory
research tools, as using familiar classroom-type activities may not always be useful.
Another way in which this study gave autonomy and power to the children was in providing
variety and choice in the way they responded and recorded their responses. For example,
in the story book activity, the children often chose to draw or write their responses
in the book, even though they knew they could respond verbally. Some children spent
several minutes deciding which colors to use, others drew, or wrote with great care
while others scribbled quickly. A few children asked the researcher to scribe for
them. The act of drawing and writing appeared to be important for the children as
they seemed to want their responses to be part of the actual book, whether this was
in the form of their own inscription or scribed by the researcher.
The disposable camera activity also gave the children agency over what they chose
to photograph. Beth, for example, had taken five pictures of her school reading book
open at different pages and one of her reading this book. The other pictures were
of her rabbits, her friend, her friend's mum, and her friend's garden. Having been
asked to take pictures of home reading, it was interesting that Beth had chosen to
take pictures that were not related to reading. On discussion with her mother, it
was revealed that Beth was reluctant to read at home and that reading had become a
source of confrontation between Beth and her mother within the home environment. Beth's
mother had encouraged her to take some pictures of reading, which Beth did, however,
she also asserted her agency by taking pictures that were not related to reading.
The activities in this study were also seen to allow the children to take time to
reason and give a genuine opinion. This was exemplified in one of the picture sorting
activities with Lily. The following conversation took place after Lily had placed
the pictures under the respective headings:
-
R—What made you decide which ones to put where?
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L—I think I'm looking for words to go on the reading one.
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R—What about this one (book without words). It doesn't have words.
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L—Yes, but you can tell it (the story) without words.
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R—What about this one (the comic)? Why is it not reading?
-
L—I think they just look at the pictures.
Lily initially reported that she was looking for artifacts that had printed words
as examples to go under the “reading” heading, but when offered the wordless picture
book she then reasoned that what you did with the artifact would also determine whether
or not it could be read. She reported that although the story book did not have words,
you could still “tell it” which assigned it to the reading column. However, she went
on to argue that the comic was “not reading” because when people look at comics, they
“just look at the pictures,” suggesting that comics did not provoke a need to “tell”
a story. This demonstrates how the activity allowed Lily to provide a sophisticated
and insightful response that may not have been forthcoming within a more traditional
research activity such as an interview.
Similarly, the children were also seen to be trying hard to reason during the Fake or real words? activity. They were asked to put the real words under a treasure chest and the fake
(or pseudo) words under a dustbin. This was an apparently simple task if the children
were able to read each word accurately and understand the meaning of the word. However,
the activity revealed that the children sometimes misread a word or came across a
word they did not know and therefore could not tell if it was a real or pseudo word.
In these cases, the children tried hard to find clues to help them with this task.
One child reasoned that a word was “not real because I haven't heard it before” (Lily),
but some of the children drew upon their phonetic knowledge as well as their general
knowledge in order to try and identify whether a word was real or fake. For example,
the word fowl caused particular confusion and none of the children identified the correct meaning
of this word. However, some of the children identified it as a real word aligning
it with foul (as in football) or foal (a baby horse). Robbie's response was especially noteworthy; following a pause he
responded, “Well there is a football foul but I don't think it is the right spelling.”
This shows how Robbie was drawing on his linguistic knowledge as well as his knowledge
of football in order to give a convincing and well-reasoned response. Moreover, in
a similar activity Zac was observed trying to decide whether vempt was a real word or not. He concluded that as he could not at the time think of any
real word beginning with v, that all words beginning with v were therefore fake. Although this was a clear misconception, the activity allowed
an insight into the way in which Zac was attempting to find patterns in language in
order to help him to complete the task.
Encouraging Children's Voice
In designing the methodology for this study, two factors appeared to be particularly
effective in encouraging the children to speak and respond during the research activities.
Firstly, the various objects and pictures which were used to engage the children and
provide a stimulus to conversation were highly effective. Secondly, as the study allowed
time for the researcher and child to get to know one another, the quality of data
collected was facilitated by the developing relationship between researcher and child
participant.
Within all research activities, the children were quick to interact with whatever
objects were laid in front of them and this provided an immediate prompt to discussion.
The physical action of handling objects, whether this was pictures, books, their own
photographs or the coloring materials provided with the story book, was an immediate
focus for the children and appeared to deflect attention from there being a pressure
to answer any questions directly. Children had a natural desire to handle, play with
and talk about these resources, and it was recognized from the outset that it was
important to allow them to do this in their own way and own time before focusing their
attention on the questions. As they talked, children naturally brought experiences
from home and school into their discussions. In particular, the story format enabled
them to talk freely about their own experiences without being asked direct or intrusive
questions. For example, Beth, responding to the question about what things could be
read said:
I've got a book but it only has pictures in because it is a book with pictures of
when I went to other countries like France and Disney Land Paris - and Alton Towers
was so fun – I saw my cousin there.
Each child was different in the way they chose to respond within the activities, and
it was an important element of this participatory approach for the researcher to develop
this understanding of each participant. For example, some children were quite reticent
or shy at the start and needed time and reassurance; others chatted away happily throughout
the activities and one child tried to be entertaining. Some children talked freely
about their achievements while others needed encouragement to speak about such things.
The sociocultural approach to this research meant that such differences were embraced
and the factors behind these attitudes were explored, all of which contributed to
the creation of each individual child profile.
Because of these differences, it was difficult to generate a set of prompts that could
be used uniformly with all the individuals. The pilot of the story book activity showed
that prompts would be necessary but these varied from child to child. For some children,
the prompts given were more about encouragement to speak and reassurance, rather than
re-wording the questions. Other children needed prompts to bring them back to the
activity when they got carried away with their own stories. This demonstrated how
the activities within this research design allowed the children to express their own
ideas and experiences in a manner that felt comfortable for them.
Listening to Voices around the Child
Given that a major aim of this study was to listen to the voice of the child, it may
seem contradictory to include the voices of adults around the child, however this
proved to be a valuable component of the listening framework upon which this study
was centered. There were three main ways in which the parent interviews in particular
contributed to both the validity of the data and the depth of the analysis. First,
the children's responses were largely validated by what their parents said. For example,
Lily's mother described Lily as being very keen to do the right thing, to “do things
properly” and to be a “good girl.” She also reported that during their reading interactions
Lily would be put off if she could not sound out or pronounce a word properly and
would sometimes ask to read something else. This concurred with the way Lily spoke
about her own reading, saying that the reading level she was on was “quite good” and
stating that she preferred to read school reading texts than other books because “I
like the levels.” Second, the children would sometimes talk about things or events
that were not entirely clear from their descriptions. Context was then provided by
the parent's own responses during their interviews. This was particularly evident
during the camera activity where the parents were able to explain why a child chose
to take a particular photograph. For example, one of Zac's photographs showed a box
of biscuits. His mother explained how Zac had a peanut allergy and therefore they
needed to read the labels to check that there were no nuts in the biscuits. This was
clearly an important aspect of reading for Zac, but this information would have been
lost if Zac's mother had not explained the context.
Finally, on other occasions divergences in the responses of the parent and child provided
the study with nuance and depth. An example of this disparity was where the children
and adults talked about bedtime stories. Most of the child participants reported that
they preferred to read by themselves or to others rather than being read to. This
often contradicted the accounts of their parents who said that their children still
cherished these interactions and would become cross if they were deprived of a bedtime
story. Given the wider data set, there is evidence to suggest that children in this
study were concerned about being seen to read accurately and may therefore have been
reluctant to report that their parents were reading to them. Moreover, as the children
defined reading as “sounding out,” where they used phonetic strategies to decode print,
many of the social interactions with texts, such as sharing books with parents, were
unlikely to be regarded as proper reading. This again meant that the data provided
from parents allowed a deeper understanding of the children's views to emerge.
Conclusion
This article has demonstrated how even young children are capable of making insightful
and important contributions to research when their voices are elicited through a sensitive
and considered research design. The children participating in this case study were
eloquent and engaging in their responses, and naturally drew on their own experiences
at home and at school when responding to questions. The key to enabling these voices
to be heard was the creation of a methodology that allowed ideas to be communicated
through an age-appropriate medium, and to be interpreted with knowledge of that child's
context and experiences. In this regard, this study makes a particular contribution
to this field of conducting participatory research with children.
The children's responses were particularly insightful when they were given power and
agency during the activities. Previous research has shown how third-party techniques,
using objects and pictures can help engage young children and reduce power imbalances
that exist within adult to child relationships (Levy, 2011). In this study, situating
the participating child as the expert who was helping and informing the alien in the
story allowed the children to rise to this position and talk confidently about their
knowledge and views. This was also seen in the disposable camera activity where the
child took charge of what they chose to photograph at home. It was noticeable, however,
that the closer the activities came to familiar school tasks, the more the children
were concerned about providing correct answers and the less they were prepared to
share their views and perceptions. These activities put the child back in the role
of “classroom learner,” rather than “expert knower,” which prevented them from freely
sharing their voice. This article therefore concludes that there are a variety of
innovative and engaging tools that researchers can use and design when working with
child participants; however, if researchers really want to access the voices of young
children in participatory research, they must position the child as an active and
expert participant in their research design.
