TY - JOUR
T1 - Researching family food decision making processes
T2 - highlights, hits and pitfalls when including young children’s perspectives
AU - Grønhøj, Alice
AU - Gram, Malene
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Purpose: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate and discuss a number of child-centric research methods/stimuli involving young children (5-6 years old) in interviews without, and subsequently with their parents. Existing and new methods were selected and developed for a study which aimed at obtaining insights into parents’ and young children’s understandings of children’s influence and family interaction with regard to family food consumption practices. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 35 children were interviewed using semi-structured interviews in five kindergartens. Subsequently, 13 families were interviewed in their homes. The latter interviews included the same children as were interviewed in the kindergarten. The methods discussed include drawings, a desert-island-choice task, a sentence completion task, photographs, vignettes and a video-clip. Findings: When interviewing young children about family decision making influence, the use of engaging methods contributes to the quality of data achieved and to the participants’ enjoyment of their participation. Care should be taken not to overload children with exercises. Visual rather than verbal methods worked better for engaging the children in the research process; for parents all included methods worked well. Research limitations/implications: The current study shows that a method developed specifically for the study (desert-island-choice task) was apt at including all family members’ perspectives; future studies should develop methods that capture shared rather than individual experiences. The study was carried out in wealthy areas in Denmark. It would be highly relevant to broaden the sample to other socio-economic and cultural contexts. Originality/value: The study is based on interviews with children usually deemed too young to interview. The contribution is novel methods that allow for studying the interaction between children and parents and that are not based on reading and writing skills to access the perspectives of 5-6-year old children. Precautions regarding using existing methods are offered.
AB - Purpose: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate and discuss a number of child-centric research methods/stimuli involving young children (5-6 years old) in interviews without, and subsequently with their parents. Existing and new methods were selected and developed for a study which aimed at obtaining insights into parents’ and young children’s understandings of children’s influence and family interaction with regard to family food consumption practices. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 35 children were interviewed using semi-structured interviews in five kindergartens. Subsequently, 13 families were interviewed in their homes. The latter interviews included the same children as were interviewed in the kindergarten. The methods discussed include drawings, a desert-island-choice task, a sentence completion task, photographs, vignettes and a video-clip. Findings: When interviewing young children about family decision making influence, the use of engaging methods contributes to the quality of data achieved and to the participants’ enjoyment of their participation. Care should be taken not to overload children with exercises. Visual rather than verbal methods worked better for engaging the children in the research process; for parents all included methods worked well. Research limitations/implications: The current study shows that a method developed specifically for the study (desert-island-choice task) was apt at including all family members’ perspectives; future studies should develop methods that capture shared rather than individual experiences. The study was carried out in wealthy areas in Denmark. It would be highly relevant to broaden the sample to other socio-economic and cultural contexts. Originality/value: The study is based on interviews with children usually deemed too young to interview. The contribution is novel methods that allow for studying the interaction between children and parents and that are not based on reading and writing skills to access the perspectives of 5-6-year old children. Precautions regarding using existing methods are offered.
KW - Child-centric research
KW - Family decision making
KW - Food
KW - Healthy eating
KW - Qualitative methods
KW - Young children
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084476306&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/QMR-03-2019-0048
DO - 10.1108/QMR-03-2019-0048
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85084476306
SN - 1352-2752
VL - 24
SP - 63
EP - 81
JO - Qualitative Market Research
JF - Qualitative Market Research
IS - 1
ER -