Interviewing Young Children: a New Interactive Method - ANZMAC

Interviewing Young Children: a New Interactive Method
Eliane Karsaklian, Negocia Business School
Abstract
In this paper, we discuss the use of specific interactive methods for researching young
children. We are persuaded that using research methods closer to the children environment
can allow researchers to obtain more accurate information from young targets. We therefore
developed a software package that allows children from 3 to 8 years old to autonomously
participate in interviews. This exploratory stage demonstrated that this method is appropriate
as children were able to be interviewed without any adult help. This method can be used in a
variety of marketing objectives as brand recognition, logo and packaging design, etc.
Key words: Interaction, autonomy, screen, scenarios, games, play
Track 10: Marketing Research and Research Methodologies
Interviewing Young Children: a New Interactive Method
In this paper, we discuss the use of specific interactive methods for researching young
children. Indeed, recent research have criticised studies that outline adult conceptions of
childhood (James and al, 1998), which do not enable children to bring rich contribution when
interviewed. We are persuaded that using research methods closer to the children
environment can allow researchers to obtain more accurate information from young targets.
We first present a general overview of the literature concerning methodological issues in
collecting data with children. Then we focus on the interactive method applied in this
research and its results.
Literature Review
The term adult box used by Roedder (1999) stresses the entire problem concerning adults
interviewing children. It is a matter of methodological appropriateness. We often say that it is
hard to interview children because of their lack of skills and limited comprehension of what
adults say. Banister and Booth (2005) recommend a child-centric method, in which children
can relate their experiences through an active role in the data collection, providing children
with the tools which will allow them to do so.
Young children in particular are more used to express themselves by creative methods, like
drawings, for example. Funny forms and colors are part of their world and they feel more at
ease when interacting via methods that integrate them. This does not mean the data they can
give is less rich (Mandell, 1991). Visual and colorful stimuli are part of their life and mind.
That is why they feel comfortable with some media like TV and computers. Visual and audio
communication being important for children, it seems easy to understand why they feel so
attracted by TV and digital games. It is known that interviewing children is a hard task as
they do not know the meaning of many words and their writing and reading skills are not
enough developed (Karsaklian, 1997). When young children are not able to answer to a
692

question like “what do you think about this brand?” Or “what imagery do you associate with
brand X?”, the adult interpretation of that is that they do not know exactly what they want
and do not process information easily. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The most currently method used by researchers concerning young targets is the smiling faces
scales, as they attract children’s attention. By the way, in order to answer with a smile,
children should first understand the question and this will require an adult’s participation. An
interesting approach conducted by Wyckham and Collins-Dodd (1997), asked children to
match brands with products by using cards. Young children (from 3 to 6 years old) where
able to choose the images that should go together and showed that they could easily
recognize brands and logos. This experience also showed that children that could not
identify a brand when it was plain script, matched the cards with the real brand very easily.
A defining characteristic of children now a day is that they are highly visual. When facing a
questionnaire, they go directly to the questions with graphs and charts or other visuals,
instead of going through each question as they did before. Based on that fact, Kuhn and
Eischen (1997) recommend researchers to present children with visual-based concepts rather
than verbal statements. This provides children with a framework that they can process and
through which they begin to provide feedback.
According to McNeal and Ji (2003), visual impact matters more with children as they are an
important audience for brand marketers, because not only are they strong influencers and
future purchasers. One important observation is the fact that children pay attention to what is
of interest for them and exclude all the rest. Visual imagery completely dominates the
children recording of memories. Children seem to recognize brands and at some visceral
level, understand their purpose. The image supports an emotional relationship for the
children because they are physical and psychological representations that carry a lot of
emotion. The physical representation will bring a meaning to the child whereas the
psychological representation will bring pleasure (Montigneaux, 2002). The more the child
will identify his/herself to the image, the more he/she will appreciate it and more pleasant
this relationship will be.
Acuff (2000) evokes the implication in packaging, for example, children of this age won’t
pay much or any attention to verbal messages. Visual detail will be far more important as
their brain is likely to focus on a predominant interesting and involving stimulus, as visual
one. Images are more likely to grab their attention that verbal stimuli. Finally, Kline (2003)
underlines that digital games are interactive media because they represent an emancipatory
improvement over traditional one-way media and passive audiences. This one is also one of
the reasons for which we designed the method presented in this paper.
Objectives
The main goal of the present paper is to provide a contribution to the development of
appropriate research methodology addressing young targets. The purpose of the research here
presented was to pre-test a method that could allow children from 3 to 8 years old to
autonomously participate in an interview. The chosen subject was testing children’s toy
preferences in a variety of situations.
693

Research Design
Each child was settled in front of a computer and when starting the session he/she was first
asked to create his/her own character by pointing out if he/she is a boy or a girl and then
choose the colour of the skin, the hair and the eyes.
The second step was presenting the five scenarios (Christmas, his/her own birthday, a friend's
birthday, his/her room, a trip) used during the exercise, for them to get to know what we
would talk about. This step also allowed us to make sure that during the experiment scenarios
would not grab more attention then the tasks themselves and helped the children to be
familiar with the exercise.
The third and last step was presenting each scenario one by one and asking children to
choose three toys to put in each one of them. The scenarios are in the right side of the screen
while the toys are in the left side. Children should click on the chosen toys to see them
appear in the scenario.
The experiment took place in two different situations. The first one was in central location
where they were observed by the researchers. Each child had headphones in order to only
listen to their own computer. The second situation was sending the software by Internet and
asking the parents to apply it.
694

Sample
Our sample was composed by 53 children (27 boys and 26 girls) aged 3 to 8 years old. The
average time consumed by children to do the experiment was 5 minutes. While children were
accomplishing their tasks, parents were asked about which of the presented toys children
already had. This information allowed us to measure a possible association between the toys
they would choose and those they already owned.
Analysis of the Data
Although our main goal was not actually to measure children’s preferences regarding toys
and situations, the method outlined allowed us to observe that there is no link between the
toys children already had and those they chose at the screen. They chose those they liked
more independently on the fact of already owning them or not. Children choose specific toys
for each specific situation and when they choose the same toys for two different situations,
they do not put them in the same order of preference. There is little difference between boys
and girls regarding the chosen toys, although girls had chosen more dolls and boys more cars.
The most expensive toys are associated with Christmas and their own birthday and children
do not choose the same toys for their own birthday and the friend's one.
Concerning the method itself, which was our main goal for this research, we can say that five
minutes is quick enough to have children motivated and involved. The experiment can even
take longer time if there is a need to add scenarios without children getting annoyed or tired.
They actually asked for more after the exercise was over. Using their own language allowed
them to autonomously participate to the interviews. No adults were called to help. Moreover,
using a computer screen and representing the contents by visual elements let children think
about a game they were willing to play. At the beginning, we aimed to compare the results of
the interactive method with those from a smiling faces scale interview, but we realized that if
we wanted to analyze 12 toys in 5 scenarios, the questionnaire would be too long, mainly if
we also aimed to measure the order of their preferences in each scenario. Therefore, we
decided not to compare both methods and concentrate in the interactive one.
Research Limitations and Implications
The level of knowledge children should have concerning computer and mouse manipulation
can introduce a bias in their responses. Computers are needed to carry out the research.
Moreover, it is tough to measure the reliability of a computer based measurement tool, as
young children, attracted by the forms and colors of some toys, could randomly click in some
of them. The interactive method was used to measure children preferences of toys regarding
specific situations. This same method can allow researchers to measure brand and logo
recognition, pre-testing packaging, logos, brand names, characters. This can also allow
children to create marketing elements by placing shapes, colors, designs, etc. Moreover,
sending the software by internet allows companies and researchers to cover big samples with
small costs. Finally, it is an appropriate method for cross-cultural research, as only the off
voice should be adapted.
695

Key References:
Acuff, D., 2000. What kids buy and why, The Free Press.
Banister, E.N., Booth, G.J., 2005. Exploring innovative methodologies for child-centric
consumer research, Qualitative market research: An International Journal, vol.8, No 2.
Brée, J., 1993. Les enfants, la consommation et le marketing, PUF.
Derbaix,C., Pecheux, C., 1998. L’attitude de l’enfant envers une nouvelle marque : de la
nécessité d’une phase de fixation ? Recherche et Applications en Marketing, Vol. 12n°1/97
James and al., 1998. Theorizing Childhood, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Karsaklian, E., 1997. Global Advertising for Children Products. Are you joking? How to be
number one in the youth market, ESOMAR conference, Copenhagen.
Kline, S., al., 2003. Digital Play, McGill Queen’s University Press.
Kuhn, M., Eischen, W., 1997. Leveraging the aptitude and ability of eight years-old
adults….and other wonders of techonology, How to be number one in the youth market,
ESOMAR conference, Copenhagen.
Mandel, N., 1991. The least-adult role in studying children in: Waksler, F; Studying the
social worlds of children, Falmer Press.
McNeal, J., Ji, M.F., 2003. Children’s visual memory of packaging, Journal of Consumer
Marketing, Vol. 20, n° 5.
Montigneaux, N., 2003. Les marques parlent aux enfants, Editions d’Organisation.
Roedder John, D., 1999. Out of the mouths of babes: what children can tell us, s in Consumer
Research, vol 24.
Roper, G., 1989. Research with marketing's paradoxical subjects: children, Marketing
Research.
Rossiter, J.R., 1976. Visual and verbal memory in children’s product information utilization,
Advances in consumer research, vol. 3.
Wyckham, R., Collins-Dodd, C., 1997. Learning brands. Young children and brand
recognition, How to be number one in the youth market, ESOMAR conference, Copenhagen.
696