Children’s understanding of well-being related questions: results of cognitive interviews in four European countries

Abstract

This paper presents the results of cognitive interviews with 8-year-old children from four European countries–Croatia, France, Finland, and Ireland. The aim of the interviews was to pre-test a selection of well-being-related questions as a part of questionnaire development for the first European multinational birth cohort study–Growing up in Digital Europe (GUIDE)/EuroCohort. Unlike most previous studies, we focused on a younger and more age-homogenous sample, as well as a more diverse set of well-known questionnaires. A total of 68 children participated in the study. The main suggestion for the interviewing procedure is to create a safe environment yet minimize the parents’ interference in answering. The questionnaires should use child-friendly vocabulary, tangible examples, avoid complex sentence structure and negative statements. The use of timeframes in questions should be minimal. The children can use Likert-type scales, but the number of different scales in the questionnaire should be limited.