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Abstract

There are currently no methodological frameworks available to conduct semi-structured interviews in the education and social sciences fields with children of primary school age, between 6–12, having no history of trauma or disabilities. To fill this gap, we conducted an integrative review of the literature to uncover current methodological considerations using the PRISMA procedure to search the ERIC, SAGE, ProQuest CBCA, SciELO and Redined databases. 19 methodological articles across multiple disciplines were retrieved and analyzed through inductive content analysis. We found that using traditional semi-structured interviews with children brings inherent challenges and that adaptation of current methods is not sufficient. A preliminary set of interviewing guidelines emphasizing a flexible and laissez-faire approach as well as a list of alternatives to the semi-structured interview for elementary-aged children are proposed, laying the foundations for a much-needed overhaul of current interviewing methods.

Keywords

children qualitative research methods interviews ethics

Introduction

Historically, research has been done on children, not with or for them. In response to this trend, there has been a growing movement in the social sciences to involve children more in research studies and to understand how they perceive the world around them (Alasuutari, 2014; Mand, 2012). It began with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), which posited that children should be considered as social agents shaped by culture and society, and no longer as objects that need specific protective measures. This shift has been reflected in the research realm, with the semi-structured interview—which until then had mostly been used with adults—being widely used as a tool to access children’s voices across multiple topics (e.g., Couse & Chen, 2010; Skinner et al., 2002; Williams et al., 1996).

However, the concept of child voice has been criticized by some scholars as being an ableist concept that disregards the institutional, cultural, and spatial contexts that shape it (Eldén, 2013; Mannion, 2007; Spyrou, 2011). Child voice is a complex and dynamic construction open to multiple interpretations, yet it has always been interpreted solely by adults with the assumption that it is a fixed hidden truth that needs to be uncovered (Facca et al., 2020). Qualitative research studies therefore often directly impose semi-structured interview protocols normally used with adults on children, with somewhat limited considerations of the developmental stage in which they are situated.

Education research has followed the same trend by increasingly collecting qualitative data from children of primary school age to study growing research topics such as student well-being (Buchanan et al., 2023) or problem-solving competencies (Celebioglu & Ezentaş, 2011), but there is little discussion about methodological challenges encountered or about ways to improve the quality of the semi-structured interviews. Certain broad methodological issues, such as power imbalance and consent generally encountered in qualitative research, have been uncovered through a previous literature review (Kirk, 2007). However, semi-structured interviews conducted in educational or social settings bring additional types of issues which have received less attention. For instance, semi-structured interviews often take place in classrooms which may be conducive to a feeling of being evaluated. As education researchers ourselves, we have been confronted with multiple methodological and ethical challenges while working in the field with primary school children, ranging from interview questions perceived as uninteresting to potentially provoked data. Mitigating these challenges requires the establishment of methodological frameworks, yet there are currently not any available to conduct semi-structured interviews with elementary-aged children (Kortesluoma et al., 2003).

In contrast, in judiciary, forensic and trauma-related research, there are some methodological frameworks available which take into consideration children’s unique characteristics and are tailored to match the specific research questions and objectives of this field. Multiple studies have been conducted to understand how interviews of children can be more carefully crafted as well as how interviewers can better ask questions in order to obtain useable data while simultaneously respecting children’s well-being and safety (see Lamb et al., 2007 for a review of studies using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development investigative interview protocol). In critical disability research, interview guidelines have been proposed for researchers (Lewis & Porter, 2004). Several studies evaluating different interview methods for children with learning disabilities were also conducted (Teachman & Gibson, 2013; Underwood et al., 2017). To the best of our knowledge, such efforts have not been made in the education and social science research fields, and education and social science researchers are therefore poorly equipped when it comes to interviewing neurotypical children non-exposed to traumatic or criminal events and of primary school age. Interviews with young research participants are not necessarily covered by programs or mentorships during a typical research career (Einarsdottir, 2007), and qualitative research textbooks offer little guidance. For example, the book The Qualitative Research Interview (Boutin, 2018, free translation from French) has only one section in Chapter 4 about interviewing children, and it covers limited concepts such as children’s characteristics, relational and contextual aspects, necessary adaptations, and interview settings (pp. 84–87).

The lack of proper guidelines for social science and education researchers interviewing children is even more striking given that there have been multiple conferences on children’s rights emphasizing their participation in research processes (Social Science Research Unit, 1994, University of Surrey, 1995), yet concrete actions to provide such guidelines have been limited. This prompted us to conduct an integrative review of the literature specifically focusing on methodological issues related to semi-structured interviews with children of primary school age and, importantly, to build preliminary concrete guidelines as well as a detailed list of alternatives to the semi-structured interview method for researchers involved in qualitative research with this age group in educational or social settings.

Specifically, we aimed to address the following questions:

1. How can researchers collect authentic, non-provoked, and rich data to answer scientific questions while ethically respecting their younger participants in non-traumatic contexts?

2. How can researchers appropriately interpret such data without compromising it, given their adult perspective?

Our goal is to describe the current state of the literature and then raise pressing issues regarding the use of the semi-structured interview method with children. Thus, we hope to begin filling the existing qualitative research void concerning methods for interviewing children by providing a set of guidelines and alternatives informed by the methodological considerations available in the retrieved articles as well as to shed light on new considerations.

Methods

Search Strategy

Consistent with our research questions, we used the search string “children AND (methodology OR methods) AND interviews” on abstract and titles. When relevant, the keywords “NOT disorders AND NOT diagnostic AND NOT disability AND NOT abuse” were added, as our review focuses on neurotypical children of primary school age non-exposed to traumatic or criminal events. For our search, we did not use any automation tools.

We began with a first search on the ERIC, Sage, ProQuest CBCA, SciELO and Redined databases carried out in March 2021. We also searched Spanish, French, and Portuguese databases such as Cairn.info and Redalyc, but we did not obtain any results from these. A second search carried out in January 2024 with the keywords “qualitative research AND interviewing children” was conducted to ensure methodological articles in the qualitative research field would be included, which led to three additional articles being identified. We also used the software Publish or Perish to verify that we had not missed any important published works.

Eligibility Criteria

As our goal is to build a preliminary set of guidelines for other education and social sciences researchers focusing on neurotypical children of primary school age with no history of trauma or disabilities, we relied on the assumption that in most countries, special education students follow a different track. This shaped the criteria we used to delineate the scope of this review, by including any methodological article that focused on both (i) neurotypical children aged 6–12 with no history of trauma or disabilities, and (ii) semi-structured interviews.

Empirical articles that used the semi-structured interview method without focusing on methodological considerations were excluded. We included all study contexts that did not relate to the judicial or forensic system, such as schools, homes, and hospital settings. We included articles focused on different age ranges as long as they included methodological considerations regarding children between the ages of 6 and 12. This age range corresponds to primary school education in most countries and was selected because language issues can arise with children under 6 years of age, while teenagers older than 12 can begin to hold conversations similar to those of adults (Docherty & Sandelowski, 1999).

Screening and Data Analysis

The screening process involved three subsequent steps in which one of the authors screened articles based on (i) their title, (ii) their abstract, and finally, (iii) their full text. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses approach (PRISMA; Page et al., 2021) was used to track, identify, and report the final list of retrieved studies.

Due to the diverse nature of the retrieved studies, the following information was extracted and grouped into several categories: information about the article itself (date, location, type of article); authors’ and journals’ areas of expertise; research question(s); data collection strategy, if any; main results; and relevant quotes. As there was too little information available regarding participants’ sociodemographic profiles, we aggregated the data by assuming the sample of children in our review formed a homogeneous group.

The retrieved studies were then analyzed using an inductive approach (Thomas, 2006). First, one of the authors systematically read all of the retrieved articles and built an initial framework of emerging themes and trends based on concepts that were repeatedly mentioned throughout the corpus. The initial framework was then shared with a second author, and the two authors iteratively built and agreed upon a final framework by combining several overlapping categories. They then applied this framework to the articles by coding them independently in order to assess its validity and to verify that nothing had been missed, with an acceptable inter-rater agreement. Eventually, no additional themes emerged, which suggested that we had identified all major themes.

Findings

The screening and selection process resulted in 19 articles being included in this review (Figure 1). The publication dates range from 1984 through 2020, which indicates that interview research methods for children represent a long-standing issue within the research community.

Figure 1.

Selection and Retrieval Process. Note. Figure template extracted from Page et al. (2021).

Multiple fields are represented: seven articles are published in education journals (Ellis, 2006; Griffin et al., 2016; Kuchah & Pinter, 2012; Kyritsi, 2019; Makansi & Carnevale, 2020; Morrison, 2013; Parker, 1984), four are related to social sciences (Cappello, 2005; Hood et al., 1996; Simon, 2020; Throssel, 2018), four are interdisciplinary (Cook & Hess, 2007; Kefyalew, 1996; Mauthner, 1997; Nishiyama, 2018), and four are published in health journals (Docherty & Sandelowski, 1999; Gardner & Randall, 2012; Irwin & Johnson, 2005; Kortesluoma et al., 2003).

All of the articles used a “behind the scenes” description approach and presented the authors’ considerations of the semi-structured interview method or qualitative research processes at large (Table 1). In particular, Irwin and Johnson’s (2005) approach falls within the research movement of describing researchers’ practices or dilemmas; they encourage others to do this as “the events that unfolded during the process of interviewing young children might not be surprising; however, these incidents are rarely addressed in scholarly articles and make up an important aspect of the lifeworld of children” (p. 829).

Table 1.

Study Characteristics.

Citation; Country Where the Study Took Place; Research Field; Authors’ Country of Origin if Reported	Research Question	Data Collection Strategies; Age of the Population in Years	Results
Cappello (2005) USA Social sciences	How can typical problems associated with interviewing children be avoided?	Case study consisting of participant observation (PO), document analysis, interviews, and photography; 6–9	Photo interviews enabled children to share what was important to them and to recall detailed information compared to the first, exclusively verbal interview
Cook & Hess (2007) UK Health and education	Did the children participate in the research projects, and if so, where?	Three case studies: Interviews in pairs, photographs, researcher’s observations; preschool, primary, and secondary children	Photographs and lack of adult control enabled children to have deeper conversations and to share what was important to them. However, only adults interpreted these results
Docherty & Sandelowski (1999) USA Health	What are the narrative abilities of children depending on their age and how do they inform interviewing?	Synthesis of the literature focusing on narrative, scripts, and memories in children; 2–10	Children as early as 2 years old develop autobiographical memory. There is mixed evidence when it comes to the appropriateness of repeated interviews for accuracy. Interview questions eliciting free recall yield more consistent results than directed questions
Ellis (2006) Canada Elementary education	How can productive research be conducted with children in ways that make them enthusiastic about the researchers’ topic of interest?	N/A; elementary-aged children	Two useful strategies were recommended: Pre-interview activities and narrative approaches. Pre-interview activities allow for building relationships through conversations
Gardner & Randall (2012) UK Health	What is the impact of the presence or absence of parents on the quality of the interview with children^	Conducted 2 independent studies, one with the presence of parents, the other without them; 6–13	Role of parents is ambivalent: When in presence of their parents, children were not able to fully express their lived experiences. In contrast, when parents were at a distance (in another room) or absent, children displayed better free recall. Yet, at times, parents provided important contextual information and helped scaffold certain conversations
Griffin et al. (2016) USA	Pilot two different methodologies for determining reader identity	Comparison between two interview methods (walk-around vs. shoulder-to-shoulder interviews); 7–10	While the walking-around method shifted power from the interviewer to the child, the shoulder-to-shoulder method seemed to produce the richest data with conversational styles instead of typical interview questions
Hood et al. (1996) UK Social sciences and education	How has the research process itself (gaining access to and interviewing the children) brought additional data on childhood and risk?	Semi-structured interviews at home, with the presence of parents, on the topic of risks in the home; 3, 9, and 12	Gatekeepers of children’s consent raise important ethical questionsInterviewing children at home about risks in the home did not allow researchers to understand what the children really thought about this topic
Irwin & Johnson (2005) Canada Health	To what extent are well-known qualitative research standards applicable to interviews with children?	Case study on children’s health experiences, but data collection strategies per se not reported; 6	It is important to build rapport with children, to carefully choose the interview setting, and to assess the quality of the data
Kefyalew (1996) Ethiopia Educational Psychology	How can participatory research be conducted with children in Ethiopia?	Evaluation of the “Local research support project: Especially Disadvantaged children” program through direct observations, interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, checklists; age is not reported	Although there was initially a large power imbalance between the researcher/interviewer and the children/interviewees, including children in the research process successfully reduced this power gap
Kortesluoma et al. (2003) Finland Learning and health	What are the theoretical premises of interviewing children and possible methodological solutions?	Case study of children’s experiences of pain and literature review on semi-structured interview methods with children; 4–11	The literature review revealed that there is little information available for researchers, with children’s interviews having unclear conceptual foundationsFindings from the case study suggest that conducting pilot interviews improves the quality of the data
Kuchah & Pinter, 2012 Cameroon Second language acquisition UK	How can an interviewer develop a relationship with children, even in difficult contexts such as the Cameroon one?	Interviews, classroom observations, focus groups; 10–11	Group interviews allowed children to take control of the agenda and to negotiate the format and the project’s purpose, thus showing that power imbalances between children and adults can be reduced if the researcher creates rapport
Kyritsi (2019) Scotland Education	How can children be included in the research process, at both the ethical and methodological levels?	Case study consisting of PO and interviews with children and teachers. Development of a box system that allows children to express consent in a continuous and confidential way by placing “yes” or “no” papers in the consent box; 11–12	The box system allowed children to flexibly give their consent, although not many used it. Importantly, children could choose the materials and the space to support the expression of their perspectives
Makansi & Carnevale (2020) Canada Clinical and Pediatric ethics	What is the best way to examine the moral experiences of children in an educational context?	Comparison of ethnographic PO with individual interviews; 2.5–5 and 9	PO enriched the collected data by providing additional contextInterviews remain important in order to not rely solely on adult interpretations of children’s behaviorsResearch strategies should be refined, as they represent an ongoing process shaped by interactions with children
Mauthner (1997) UK Social sciences and education	What are the appropriateness and effectiveness of different qualitative research methods?	Three case studies comparing PO, small group discussions, interviews, and structured activities; 5–9, 7, 2–18	Conducting research on children’s perspectives leads to methodological issues involving consent, access, privacy, and confidentialityFindings suggest that it is important to adopt a flexible approachSmall group discussions and ethnographic PO are the most appropriate methods for 6-year-olds
Morrison (2013) China Education	“What can researchers do to ensure that interviews in potentially uncomfortable situations for children are positive for the children and useful for the researchers?”	Case study of 3 group interviews conducted with the help of a Cantonese-speaking assistant; 8–9	Conducting interviews in a school setting and with a western foreigner yielded significant distress for the children. To improve the interview conditions, the researchers established good rapport, valued the children’s opinions, chose a young and relatable native speaker as an interviewer, and paid close attention to the physical space and non-verbal cues
Nishiyama (2018) Japan Governance & policy	How can interviews be redesigned to address the power imbalance between children and adults?	Case study of children using the community of inquiry (CoI) method; junior high school students	CoI enabled a reversal in traditional roles, with children themselves becoming interviewers and inquirers
Parker (1984) USA Professional teacher education	How can teachers interview children for research purposes?	N/A; elementary-aged children	Researchers need to take into consideration ethics (i.e., justifying intrusions into the child’s “ecosphere”), interviewer biases, and the child’s age to preserve the validity and reliability of the interview
Simon (2020) French Polynesia Social sciences	How can methodological obstacles be overcome?	Case study on children’s political perceptions: Preliminary questionnaire, then pair interviews; 8–10	Using a traditional semi-structured interview protocol was unsuccessful, as children were shy, anxious, and gave few answersShifting to interviewing in pairs proved more useful
Throssel, 2018 France Social sciences	What solutions have been found to address challenges associated with interviewing children?	Case study comprising PO, projective tools, and activities with semi-structured interviews; 8 on average	Semi-structured interviews bring ethical challenges, and using projective tools and activities mitigates these issues to some extent

We identified three main research objectives: (i) identifying the issues and problems related to traditional interviewing methods, (ii) suggesting alternative data collection methods that are more adapted to children’s unique characteristics, and (iii) questioning the involvement of children in the research process. For these objectives, the most common data collection strategy was to combine semi-structured interviews with other complementary methods and/or activities (n = 9). In a few cases, the authors suggested a method completely different from the traditional semi-structured interview (n = 2). One study presented partial results of a literature review, because very few studies were retrieved from the authors’ literature search (Kortesluoma et al., 2003), while another one presented a synthesis of the literature on memory processes and narrative abilities in children which hold relevance for interviewing techniques (Docherty & Sandelowski, 1999). Finally, only two studies used a traditional semi-structured interview method (Gardner & Randall, 2012; Hood et al., 1996).

The two main themes yielded by our inductive analysis were: (i) applying traditional semi-structured interview methods to children will inherently bring challenges, and (ii) a set of solutions and alternatives was proposed to address those challenges. They are reported below in subsections corresponding to two of the three most common research objectives addressed by the retrieved articles. The third objective (i.e., questioning the involvement of children in the research process) is addressed in more detail in the last subsection.

Inherent Challenges

All of the articles we reviewed report that using traditional semi-structured interview methods that are usually used with adults imply inherent challenges if used with children. We choose the word “inherent” to signal that the traditional semi-structured interview, by its very nature and essence, will always lead to significant challenges when used with children. The following challenges were consistently reported, in decreasing order of their occurrence: there exist significant power dynamics between interviewer and interviewee, school settings are inappropriate for interviews, interviews are stressful for children, interviews are not developmentally appropriate, it is difficult to obtain consent, the quality of the data is consistently poor, and privacy is an issue.

Power Dynamics

Most authors (n = 8) mentioned the heavy power dynamics at play every time a semi-structured interview occurs between a child and an adult interviewer. First, the age difference is extremely important, as children are taught to obey adults. No matter how carefully drafted the interview questions are, children will try to please the adult by giving answers that they believe are suitable and acceptable to the adult (Morrison, 2013; Nishiyama, 2018). Even the act of interviewing itself has an impact on children’s answers: “the nature of the interview (questions and answers) represents a classic classroom model (initiation–response–feedback), which could emphasize the power differential” (Makansi & Carnevale, 2020, p. 54). Thus, it seems that the age difference may prevent researchers from truly having access to children’s voices and interpretations.

Perhaps more subtle, but equally important, race, gender, and socioeconomic status also have a strong impact on children. The interviewer’s identity shapes question formulation and attitudes (Parker, 1984). For instance, in a case study with working class children, Simon (2020) noted that traditional semi-structured interviews are only appropriate for the elite social classes: “The research relationship is likely to be particularly destabilizing for the children from working class backgrounds, for whom the distance associated with age and status are accentuated by class and/or race relations” (p. 90). Indeed, Simon (2020) reported that the working class children were very shy and did not provide answers to her semi-structured questions during her interview, thus forcing her to adapt her interview protocol. In contrast, Morrison (2013) and their team reframed the power imbalance by dressing up formally to show the children they valued their opinions.

Inappropriateness of School Settings

Interview settings are also important. Often owing to practical considerations and constraints, researchers sometimes interview children at school. However, a few studies (n = 4) cautioned against using schools as an interview setting, as “children may see an interview as part of doing school work and treat interviewers as some kind of teacher. This results in children putting on their best school behavior and feeding researchers information that they think the researchers want to hear rather than engaging in thoughtful dialogue” (Cappello, 2005, p. 172). School settings might therefore prevent researchers from truly accessing children’s perspectives, which biases the results.

Induced Stress for Children

Several studies also mentioned the importance of children’s well-being and that interviews undoubtedly constitute intrusions into the child’s world (n = 4). For example, Hood et al. (1996) reported that one of their research participants vomited during the interview. Therefore, some studies suggested that interviews should always be justified, and when they are conducted, side effects should be anticipated; moreover, researchers should help children calm down if the act of interviewing causes distress—even when the induced stress is marginal. Parker (1984) suggested that “researchers must consider the extent to which the interview is an intervention into the ‘ecosphere’ occupied by the child and whether or not the ecological ramifications justify the intrusion” (p. 25).

Lack of Developmental Appropriateness

The studies we reviewed also questioned the pertinence of using interview protocols designed for and by adults on children (n = 4). For example, Griffin et al. (2016) reported that “a criticism of child research is that data generation methods developed for and used exclusively by adults are applied to children with little to no reflection and rarely studied for the appropriateness of the method with children. If cynical, the research line of children seems reminiscent of animal observational research, as though we have forgotten children can communicate with adults and want to communicate with adults” (p. 22). Using semi-structured interviews that are not developmentally appropriate also raises considerable questions from a methodological perspective. Indeed, Parker (1984) reported that “a failure to adapt the interview relationship and its setting to the developmental stage of the child seriously compromises the validity and reliability of the interview” (p. 20). Docherty & Sandelowski (1999) discussed in detail the different conversational and memory abilities children have depending on their developmental stage, indicating that interviewing strategies should take this information into account.

Obtaining Consent

Another challenge inherent to using semi-structured interviews with children relates to the concept of consent, which is mandatory in any study involving human participants. Several studies (n = 3) mentioned that it was particularly difficult to obtain consent from children, notably because of the number of gatekeepers that the researchers had to go through before finally accessing the young research participants. For instance, Mauthner (1997) reported that they first had to contact schools and obtain their permission and then conduct the same procedure with parents, before finally being authorized to approach the children. This lengthy process led to what Kyritsi (2019) called a “sudden realization” of the fact that “children were the main participants in this research, but the last to be asked to provide their consent. This fact indicates children’s unequal position (in the sense that it depends on the outcome of the previous decision layers) within the structures of procedural ethics” (p. 41). Kyritsi (2019) and Hood et al. (1996) further questioned the role of ethics, stating that it might protect adults more than actually promoting children’s participation in research, leading to compromised consent by the child.

Poor Data Quality

Taken together, all of the aforementioned challenges contribute to another challenge, namely, poor data quality (Irwin et al., 2005; Parker, 1984). This issue, which is important from a scientific perspective, is usually triggered after data has been collected using traditional semi-structured interviews and prompts additional reflections from authors, such as: “As we listened to the tapes of these interviews, we found ourselves wondering if our data were rich enough, complete enough, and coherent enough. If not, how could we improve the quality of these interviews?” (Irwin et al., 2005, p. 822). The challenge of having poor data quality can also arise at the data analysis level: “It is unlikely that the children were talking about their photographs to enable the adult to understand their worlds (the aim of the adult researchers) yet this is how the adults interpreted their actions and discussions” (Cook & Hess, 2007, p. 43).

Privacy

Finally, two articles explored in detail the issue of privacy in traditional interview settings (Gardner & Randall, 2012; Mauthner, 1997). Adult presence or school noises might interfere with conducting smooth interviews: “Another difficulty researchers face once they have gained access to children is negotiating privacy, whether in the school, home or hospital setting. Obtaining a separate space away from the classroom or the main family room can be a sensitive issue: partly, adults do not consider children’s need for private space for an interview; partly, adults who see themselves as ‘protecting’ children—parents, teachers—may feel that children do not have these rights at all. Parents may not share mainly white middle class researchers' conception of children’s rights to privacy, confidentiality and autonomy. At school there can be a shortage of space. At home, problems of privacy arise when families live in cramped housing conditions” (Mauthner, 1997, p. 18). Gardner & Randall (2012) specifically investigated the effect of parental presence or absence on the quality of the interviews with children and reported that in the condition where parents were absent, which provided the most privacy, “the views they gave were much more detailed. Children were able to express in detail and with vivid insight how they experienced receiving care” (p. 8).

Solutions and Alternatives

Among the articles that focused on the second objective (i.e., suggesting alternative interviewing methods), none used quantitative or qualitative methods of analysis to rigorously compare their own proposed method with the traditional semi-structured interview. For example, Griffin et al. (2016) reported their findings in the following way: “This method seemed to produce the richest data. While other elements certainly were at play such as age group or personalities of the participants, I felt the rich data were due to the nature of the shoulder-to-shoulder method itself” (p. 20).

The considerations mentioned in the retrieved studies allowed us to identify a set of (i) solutions to implement when conducting semi-structured interviews with children in order to mitigate some of the aforementioned challenges and (ii) a set of alternatives to the traditional semi-structured interview.

Solutions

Our analyses identified six main types of possible solutions that, taken together, point towards disrupting the traditional ways to conduct interviews with younger research participants. We categorized these solutions according to the interview stage: pre-interview, during, post-interview, and throughout all stages (Figure 2). At the pre-interview stage, the solutions include conducting cautious and lengthy planning, and reminding children about what the research purposes are. During the interview, the solutions include changing the researcher’s role and embracing a laissez-faire approach. At the post-interview stage, a solution would be to ask for the children’s feedback. At all stages, a sixth solution is to remain flexible.

Figure 2.

Set of preliminary guidelines to conduct interviews with elementary-aged children.

Pre-Interview Solutions

Cautious and lengthy planning was consistently cited as a key solution to be implemented at the pre-interview stage. Kuchah and Pinter (2012) as well as Morrison (2013) reported spending several weeks getting to know their young research participants before engaging in data collection. Other researchers conducted several pre-meetings to establish a working relationship with the child (Irwin & Johnson, 2005; Kefyalew, 1996; Kortesluoma et al., 2003). Similarly, Cappello (2005) reviewed the child’s entire history before starting an interview. Participant observations were also emphasized as an effective tool to better understand the social and cultural contexts in which children are immersed and also for refining research strategies accordingly at a later stage (Makansi & Carnevale, 2020). Docherty & Sandelowski (1999) also recommended using tools to measure language abilities in the pre-interview stage as they are a better indicator of children’s interview preparedness than chronological age is.

Griffin et al. (2016) reported that reminding children what the research purposes are before asking any questions helps mitigate the stress induced by the interview. Telling children what the research purposes are is also important in terms of gathering unbiased data, as Irwin and Johnson (2005) explain that younger participants might not always understand that their answers are helpful to the researchers.

Solutions During the Interview

Interviewers should not be perceived as adults, for otherwise the power imbalance will greatly affect the quality of the data collected. Most of the retrieved articles mention the need to change the researcher’s role into a humbler one, that of someone who is ignorant, dumb, or foreign to the children’s world (Kyritsi, 2019; Makansi & Carnevale, 2020; Throssel, 2018). Such a role will constitute a legitimate explanation for children regarding why this adult needs to ask them questions. Re-shaping the role of the researcher/interviewer is extremely important because children are not used to being asked questions about themselves, let alone by people who are genuinely interested in their perspectives, especially in cultural settings where children are asked to be obedient and docile (Morrison, 2013). For example, Makansi and Carnevale (2020) used a “magic wand” to make themselves small and thereby comparable to children: They pretended to shrink in size whenever they stepped into the children’s environment, which allowed them to build trust between themselves and their young interviewees. Similarly, Throssel (2018) adopted the role of a foreigner who did not know the rules and routines of the interviewed children, which created sympathy in the children’s eyes. She became a quite “incompetent” adult, which legitimized her asking them questions, so that the children were the ones who held the knowledge and were thus more willing to share their perspectives.

Relatedly, Griffin et al. (2016) and Kyritsi (2019) both reported that children are more relaxed and engaged in the interview process if they have an opportunity to ask the interviewer questions as well as to freely choose their topics. This laissez-faire approach is only possible if the researcher accepts being the one to answer questions, thus reinforcing the need to invert traditional interview roles. Embracing the concept of laissez-faire, Irwin and Johnson (2005) argued that “[as researchers] we must be prepared with an alternate structure to our interviews to meet the needs of each individual child as well as being open to moving completely off topic” (p. 825). Letting children use what adults perceive as “tangential” talk is important, as it provides valuable information and enables researchers to better appreciate children’s perspectives (Irwin & Johnson, 2005).

Post-Interview Solution

Although not necessarily customary in semi-structured interview processes, Mauthner (1997) has indicated that it is necessary to ask for children’s feedback at the end of the interview. This will allow researchers to first reflect on what happened in a way that includes children’s perspectives, and to later continuously improve their research strategies.

Process Solution

Several researchers mentioned the unexpected need to be flexible in their research practices throughout their studies. For example, Throssel (2018) had to change her data analysis methods after conducting her interviews with children, switching to a “more artisanal approach and analys[ing] the perspective of each child as a whole” (p. 41). She also had to include more prolonged observations of children, as well as modify her questionnaire-like interview protocol to a “set of themes” (p. 28). The interview protocol was even further modified in Kuchah and Pinter’s (2012) study by the children themselves: “This allowance for digression from the researcher’s agenda is important in the process of establishing and sustaining mutuality between the adult researcher and child-participants” (p. 290).

Flexibility has also been reported as instrumental in safeguarding children’s well-being. Kyritsi (2019) argued that flexible materials and spaces should be made available to children in order to create a comfortable atmosphere that is malleable for each individual, which fosters children’s active engagement in the interview process. For some researchers, this also implies being attentive to the nonverbal cues exhibited by children and having enough flexibility to end an interview sooner than planned if the interviewer notices that the child is fatigued or exceedingly stressed (Griffin et al., 2016; Irwin & Johnson, 2005; Morrison, 2013).

Alternatives

The retrieved studies explored several alternatives to the traditional semi-structured interview in depth that we analyzed according to their (dis)advantages (Table 2).

Table 2.

Alternatives.

The explored alternative	(Dis)advantages it yielded
Pre-interview activities (Ellis, 2006; Throssel, 2018)	Pre-interview activities allow children to recollect and reflect on their past experiences (Ellis, 2006). These also provide space for non-verbal forms of expression to emerge (Throssel, 2018).
Ethnographic participant observation (PO) (Kefyalew, 1996; Kyritsi, 2019; Makansi & Carnevale, 2020; Mauthner, 1997; Throssel, 2018)	PO enables researchers to extensively understand the personality, context, and language of children who are about to be interviewed (Kefyalew, 1996; Mauthner, 1997; Throssel, 2018). PO can also generate data that can be inductively coded into general themes, similar to interview findings, yet with better data quality as children get used to seeing an observer in their environment and are thus more prone to share their experiences (Makansi & Carnevale, 2020).
Shoulder-to-shoulder (Griffin et al., 2016)	Having the interviewer sit next to the interviewee, shoulder-to-shoulder with no eye contact, generated a conversational tone and enabled a deeper dive into topics of interest.
Kinetic conversations (Griffin et al., 2016; Irwin & Johnson, 2005)	Mobile interview methods prevent children from being pulled out of their natural settings into tightly controlled laboratory settings, which might reinforce power imbalances (Griffin et al., 2016). Moreover, this gives children control over the places they want to go to. Kinetic conversations also allow children to use as much space as they need to express themselves (Irwin & Johnson, 2005).
Game interviews (Mauthner, 1997; Simon, 2020)	Interviews were made into games in order to adapt to children’s social class (Simon, 2020). As a consequence, verbatim transcripts were quite disjointed, yet these games allowed the children to enjoy the interview and to use a more natural conversational approach. Questions were also systematically similarly worded as they were written on a card game. Using fun activities is also a way for researchers to adapt to children’s cultural background by using multicultural tools, such as card pictures of Caribbean or Indian fruits (Mauthner, 1997).
Photo interviews (Cappello, 2005; Cook & Hess, 2007)	Photo interviews enrich data collected with other qualitative research methods, especially when participants are situated in a different developmental stage that limits their memory and verbal capacity (Cappello, 2005; Cook & Hess, 2007). Photographs are tangible and concrete representations of what children choose to be interested in; they have control over what they decide to take pictures of (Cook & Hess, 2007). However, it is hard to tell whether children knew why they were asked to take pictures since the researchers did not explain their research purposes to the children (Cook & Hess, 2007).
Group interviews (Kefyalew, 1996; Kuchah & Pinter, 2012; Mauthner, 1997; Morrison, 2013; Simon, 2020)	Group interviews allowed the children in Kuchah and Pinter’s (2012) study to “tak[e] control of the agenda […] to challenge adult views and conceptions of good teaching and good teachers” (p. 287). Interviews in pairs also allow the researcher to observe interactions between the interviewees (Simon, 2020) and to dominate the conversation less. However, groups need to be balanced with respect to age and gender, as power imbalances between children can also occur (Mauthner, 1997; Morrison, 2013).
Community of inquiry (CoI)(Nishiyama, 2018)	CoI should be used for generated data in interpretive interview settings as interviewers can ask questions aimed at understanding the contextualized knowledge held by participants. With children, CoI mitigates power imbalances because it occurs in a group setting where all participants can also ask questions and react to what others say.

The explored alternatives were all the result of an attempt to mitigate inherent challenges that arose when using semi-structured interviews with children. Some of these alternatives take children’s unique needs into consideration and provide a safe space for them to express their perspectives and ideas, such as the game interviews or the kinetic conversations. All of these alternatives led to more natural conversations, in which the researchers felt that participants would more freely discuss topics of interest.

These alternatives consistently demonstrate a willingness to reject the typical interview setting in which interviewees sit and compliantly answer questions and to instead create new interview configurations in which children have more power and agency. Participant Observation has been extensively described as instrumental for doing this, since it provides valuable contextual information to researchers who can then adapt and refine their research strategies.

The Involvement of Children in the Research Process

Some authors engaged in a critique of the research process at large, as semi-structured interviews are the main tool used in qualitative research. The main critique was that research studies are designed by adults for adults, with no involvement of children at all: “While the researchers considered [the use of cameras as] a way of researching with children, none of the children participated in deciding on the subject for research, the method of data collection or the way in which the data might be analysed” (Cook & Hess, 2007, p. 32).

Among the articles that touched upon this third objective, questioning the involvement of children in the research process, none mentioned that children could be involved in all steps. Instead, some mentioned the need to involve children at the data analysis level (Cappello, 2005; Cook & Hess, 2007; Irwin & Johnson, 2005), while others indicated that children needed to be more heavily involved in the study design (Cook & Hess, 2007; Kefyalew, 1996). In this regard, Kefyalew (1996) reported successful involvement of children in the research process: “Children who took part in the research practice exercise indicate how capable they are of taking an active role in research, and, specifically, of talking about their needs” (p. 210).

A few authors mentioned how the research system at large plays a pivotal role in shaping specific interview settings. For example, Makansi and Carnevale (2020) reported that “establishing rapport with the school-aged children in this study was more difficult due to some contextual barriers and institutional policy” (p. 54), such as being unable to stay in a closed room with a child. In turn, this policy prevented participants from using their agency, as they could not choose their interview setting and were instead forced to be located in an open area with multiple distractors. Kefyalew (1996) similarly critiqued child-centered organizations by stating that they “lack proper, culture-appropriate and sound methods to conduct research with children” (p. 210).

Multiple authors also heavily critiqued traditional childhood research methods, settings, and processes (n = 6), with only a minority acknowledging that qualitative research is by nature an effective tool to access voices of the marginalized (n = 2). Hood et al. (1996) crystallized the essence of this critique: “Research has been on children, not with them or for them” (p. 118), echoing ongoing scientific debates about how to better incorporate children in the research process. For instance, Nishiyama (2018) argued that while adding participatory activities in a traditional interviewing method might be interesting, “it is also important to (re)design the interview itself in ways that are more attuned to the issues related to research with children” (p. 3; italics added).

Discussion

This integrative review has begun to address a gap in the qualitative research literature by proposing a preliminary set of guidelines for interviewing children of primary school age in the educational and social science fields based on methodological considerations analyzed from the retrieved studies. The collected evidence indicates that there are inherent challenges that will necessarily arise when conducting traditional semi-structured interviews with children, which therefore raises the question of how children can be involved in the research process. These inherent challenges that were identified are not common to only the age range we imposed on our systematic review; they are also consistently reported in other works focusing on different ages (Danby et al., 2011; Einarsdottir, 2007). We also suggest a set of solutions depending on the interview stage and even portray alternatives to the traditional semi-structured interview in order to mitigate these challenges. Taken together, the disruptive nature of these solutions and alternatives demonstrates that merely adapting current semi-structured interview methods is not sufficient to ethically collect authentic and rich data. What began as a simple question about methods for interviewing children enabled multiple other questions to surface, which reveals how complex it is to conduct research with children. Indeed, we had not expected to retrieve only articles that would critique the traditional semi-structured interview approach.

Altogether, the evidence points towards a lack of conceptual or theoretical frameworks regarding interviewing methods for children. This is consistent with findings from Kortesluoma et al.’s (2003) literature review, in which they report that there is little guidance available for researchers, especially novices. Arriving at the same conclusion as an article published 20 years ago critically signals that the research field has not yet taken into consideration the methodological issues related to semi-structured interviews conducted with children. There are indeed multiple research constraints imposed by the ethics committees and academic institutions, such as funding, ethics training, and time dedicated to data collection, which might all constitute barriers to conducting interviews that are developmentally and ethically respectful of younger participants (Hamelin-Brabant, 2006). In turn, these barriers have also shaped to some extent the interviewing practices developed by researchers working with children. Previous reviews on conducting qualitative research with children (Kirk, 2007) or with children with neurodevelopmental disorders (Carroll & Twomey, 2021) have reported that researchers supplement verbal communication using a combination of tools and visuals, or by changing the question style, which all reflect adaptation practices that were also found in this review. Based on our findings, we call for going beyond “adaptation” and for building an entire methodological framework that is appropriate for and specific to children (Nishiyama, 2018). Specifically, we suggest co-creating a research agenda dedicated to restructuring semi-structured interviews for children.

We argue for involving the research community at large, especially ethics committees and funding institutions. In this regard, Harcourt and Sargeant (2011) have extensively discussed the need to break the conservatism of current ethics committees when it comes to studies involving children, and to embrace ethics as both a “research training and design process” (p. 431). For instance, they suggest increased and enlarged access to relevant guidance and tools, as well as ensuring that ethics committees are multidisciplinary and inclusive with transparent and standardized decision-making. Similarly, the evidence collected here importantly points toward increasingly including flexible research practices at every stage of the research process, thus being responsive to participants’ unique contexts and needs. However, this proposed solution clearly clashes with ethics committees’ requirements, such as providing a complete interview protocol prior to starting data collection. The rigidity imposed by ethics committees does not allow for flexibility in the research design, which raises the question: Is rigidity the only means to ensure ethical conduct in research with children?

We also found that the results from the reviewed studies were based on the subjective impressions of the researchers, which indicates the need for more standardized ways of comparing different semi-structured interviewing methods. Future studies should incorporate rigorous comparative methods that measure and test multiple alternatives to traditional semi-structured interviews with different youth populations in order to understand what the most effective practices are, and for whom. Moreover, it is of paramount importance to continuously involve children—the main participants and beneficiaries of this research—in every aspect of the creation of a methodological framework. It is indeed the child’s right to be part of the decision-making process (Lundy, 2007), as stated in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).

Inclusively building a methodological framework for younger research participants would also help ensure equity, with children’s specific characteristics being respected and valued. Cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental factors are all known to affect children’s development in unique ways (e.g., Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; Chen & Eisenberg, 2012). It is important to acknowledge these factors if researchers want to respect younger participants’ well-being and assent. For example, in some cultures, children are taught not to look directly into adults’ eyes, which indicates disrespect and an “I-don’t-care” attitude in Western conventions. In this case, interviewing non-Western children would therefore necessarily imply using different methods that would not cause distress to the interviewees. Similarly, socioeconomic differences amongst children lead to broad differences in vocabulary and language abilities (Fernald et al., 2013) and also in terms of cognitive functioning (Duncan & Magnuson, 2012), not to mention the increased stress induced by having to talk to an educated—and often upper-middle-class—interviewer. Instead of embracing a “deficit-approach” whereby children would be perceived as being less than adults—especially if they are underprivileged, which would systematically lead to downgrading interview protocols—we instead suggest viewing children as having different strengths. Such a strength-oriented perspective is consistent with previous findings from a synthesis of the literature on how children narrate events and form memories: “interview data from children is not less well-developed than, but rather different from, data obtained from adults” (Docherty & Sandelowski, 1999). Adopting a strength-oriented perspective would lead to creating protocols that actively respect and value children’s specific characteristics.

From a scientific standpoint, creating developmentally and context-appropriate interview methods for children would also greatly benefit the quality of the collected data. This idea has been consistently reported throughout this integrative review. First, stress is known to impact children’s interview responses, and also memories (e.g., Shrimpton et al., 1998). The stress factor should therefore be seriously considered, as interviews of children constitute intrusions into their world (Parker, 1984) and thus induce great distress that might bias the results. Moments of silence have also been often neglected in studies using interviews with children, although silences serve a purpose and should therefore systematically be accounted for in research contexts (Lewis, 2010). Moreover, Liebenberg et al. (2020) argue for the inclusion of children and young people in the data analysis step of research projects as a way to include their voices. Children could also be included at a later stage, where they could be asked to check the researcher’s/adult’s interpretations of their interview answers. As study participants, children also need to be made aware of the study results (Harcourt & Sargeant, 2011), and not just traditional adult audiences such as fellow researchers, parents, teachers, or policymakers. This child-centered research dissemination concept is crucial, as children who participate in research projects should be the first audience to receive any benefits yielded by the study. Children are indeed too often left out in mention of potential study benefits, yet researchers begin studies in order to contribute to their well-being. All of these inclusive strategies would enhance the quality and validity of the collected data.

Our review also has a few limitations due to its scope. For instance, we considered the research participants in the retrieved studies as a homogeneous group during the analysis phase as we did not have enough information to segregate findings based on other sociodemographic characteristics, thus limiting the generalizability of our results. Additionally, the literature search was conducted in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese, potentially excluding studies written in other languages. We also did not survey the grey literature where some operational methodological frameworks might have been found.

More than ever, children and youth are expressing their need to be listened to and respected (e.g., the Fridays for Future movement, or the Youth Declaration during the UN, 1989 summit on Transforming Education). The compelling call that they are making should be urgently and directly translated into renewed qualitative research practices that are ethically and developmentally relevant. In turn, this will increase the validity and reliability of findings yielded by semi-structured interviews. Our integrative review has described current challenges and suggested a set of preliminary guidelines, but most importantly, it builds the case for a much-needed overhaul of interviewing methods for children.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the Research Chair in Outdoor Education (CREPA) at the University of Sherbrooke.

ORCID iD

Gabriela Quintela Do Carmo

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Going Beyond Adaptation: An Integrative Review and Ethical Considerations of Semi-Structured Interviews With Elementary-Aged Children