Ethical research with families and children
Purpose of ethical research with families and children
The purpose of doing research with families and children is to understand and respect their perspectives on life and world, based on ethical research considerations and a valid data foundation.
This helps you to be able to extract actionable insights for relevant responsible strategic direction and targeted initiatives.
Ethical research principles
To ensure a full, solid, and respectful understanding of families and children, perspectives from both children and parents are in focus.
The understanding will capture a combination of thoughts, feelings, and behaviour among families and children.
Family & Child Insight applies psychological, pedagogical, and ethical research responsible approaches with regards to families and children.
Ethical research recruitment
Target groups
Family & Child Insight focuses on families and children as key target groups, which means that we invite both parents and children to participate equally.
This respects both parents and children’s perspectives and brings a collection of two-sided perspectives to gain solid insight.
Recruitment procedure
Family & Child Insight recruits families and children based on a 3-step procedure:
- ACCESS – We always contact families through parents first, then children.
- INFORMATION – We provide information in written and visual family- and child centric formats, and encourage families to have a dialogue based on this.
- ACCEPT – Finally, we collect acceptance through an informed consent from parents on behalf of themselves and their children, and additionally an ethical informed assent from children.
Ethical research approaches
To ensure a specialised, solid, and responsible understanding of families and children, Family & Child Insight applies specific family- and child-centric methods and techniques based on academic approaches as foundation and ethical research considerations targeted to the situation.
Desk research
With the purpose to establish a general foundation of an existing understanding of families and children on the particular area of interest, Family & Child Insight by default initially conducts a desk search in relevant databases targeted to the needs and situation, e.g.:
- Media about current public topics and debates
- Trends and statistics about new behaviours
- Academic articles about new published research
Empirical research
With the purpose to establish a specific understanding of families and children on the particular area of interest, Family & Child Insights invite and actively involve families and children of the particular target group of interest in various kinds of research activities:
Qualitative research
For explorative and creative insight on current behaviours and new ideas, e.g.:
- Participant observations
- Individual, family, and peer interviews
- Extended family workshops
Quantitative research
For confirming and testing insight on impact and reactions, e.g.:
- Family surveys with questionnaires
- Extended family experiments
A research mix
For combined and extra solid insight with an in-depth elaborating understanding, e.g.:
- Qualitative->Quantitative
- Quantitative->Qualitative
- Qualitative->Quantitative->Qualitative
Ethical research solution packages
To ensure you get the best possible solution which matches your needs and situation, you can choose between different packages.
Family & Child Insight targets all solutions to you based on a close dialogue.
1. Sparring partner (subject matter expert)
- One option for you is to get specific recommendations about how to do research with families and children in a concrete case.
- Another option for you is to get general recommendations about research with families and children (e.g. in a presentation)
2. Total solution (for a concrete research case)
- Planning (incl. recruitment)
- Conducting (desk and empirical)
- Reporting (analysis and results)
3. Course, training, and coaching
- This option gives you an opportunity to learn how to do research with families and children by yourself.
- Together we target the specific solution to your needs and the situation.