Premium
Focus on qualitative methods: Interviewing children
Author(s) -
Docherty Sharron,
Sandelowski Margarete
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
research in nursing and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1098-240X
pISSN - 0160-6891
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1098-240x(199904)22:2<177::aid-nur9>3.0.co;2-h
Subject(s) - recall , interview , narrative , competence (human resources) , scripting language , scholarship , focus group , qualitative research , psychology , developmental psychology , consistency (knowledge bases) , medicine , medical education , social psychology , computer science , cognitive psychology , sociology , social science , linguistics , philosophy , artificial intelligence , anthropology , political science , law , operating system
The focus in health‐related research on children has shifted from seeking information about children to seeking information directly from them. Children, even as young as three years old, can give graphic descriptions and have excellent recall of experiences related to adverse events, such as illness and hospitalization. Children use scripts as the primary means of anticipating, comprehending, and re‐creating real‐life experience. The content, timing, number, and structure of interviews will influence the completeness, accuracy, and consistency of children's recall of events. Although at times conflicting, the findings from recent scholarship on children's narrative competence will assist researchers to select the interviewing strategies most likely to yield faithful representations of experience. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Res Nurs Health 22:177–185, 1999