“Listen up" – Children as content experts
Rationale/Background: Despite ongoing rhetoric about the need to listen to children, powerful social and cultural tendencies continue to exclude the voice of children in matters that affect them, including research and clinical practice. To access the experience and perspectives of children more fully, researchers and clinicians need to re-conceptualize children as capable participants, but also as partners to be listened to and encouraged to speak. The challenge is how to devise research methods that open opportunities to involve children in the process.
Undertaking/best practice/approach/methods/process: Content or subject-matter experts are often used in research, especially for instrument development, to provide expertise on a specific subject. The ‘expertise’ usually is established from their education, publication record, or experience. For this project, a group of school-age children were invited to serve on a content expert panel for a pediatric nurse researcher for one year. In this role, thee children not only learned about the research process, but they also directly engaged in the instrument development process for a number of projects. To nurture their curiosity and provide opportunities for them to present their own views and explore the complexity of issues, they were also encouraged to identify and formally present their ideas for research priorities for future health-related research related to children.
Outcomes achieved/documented: The engagement of children as content experts is a practical application, in which children perceptions and experiences can be actively engaged in the research process, rather than as subjects of research. The formative and summative feedback from the children, their parents, and the researchers with whom the children shared their ‘expertise’ was overwhelmingly positive. Most notable is that all of the children wish to continue in their role. A more objective outcome is that one research study team that engaged the children in a challenging instrument revision study progressed to publication, not only acknowledging the pivotal role the child ‘content expert’ panel played in their research, but also acknowledging the children in their publication. Further, the students presented their suggestions for research priorities, which they titled ‘Listen Up’. Their presentation, which they titled ‘Listen Up’, in turn influenced the program of study of the pediatric nurse researcher.
Conclusions: Researching children’s experiences not only requires us to engage children as participants, but also to educate children about research and what it means to participate in a research project as participants, co-researchers, or in this project, as content experts. Methods that engage children in the research process can provide key insights into children’s nuanced language, social contexts, and concepts from their perspective and experience. Such understanding not only enhances the validity of our instruments and research process, but also works toward repositioning children’s voices.