Making your mind up? The reliability of children's survey responses

Abstract

Survey tools are widely used within Child Computer Interaction however the validity and reliability of children's responses are often brought into question. This paper reports on a study on the effects of asking the same questions to the same children over a period of a week to ascertain the validity of children's responses when completing a single questionnaire. The results showed that over 50% of the children, for each question, had less than half the items they stated as having at home in their results for both questionnaires questioning the validity of either questionnaire alone. Further research will look at the differences in time gaps and use of identical questionnaire styles.