Hello! My name is Nick Petten, owner of Petten Consulting in Toronto, Canada. I am a practicing program evaluator focused on child and youth programs and a children’s rights advocate. My work with children and young people over the last decade and a half has impressed upon me that they are fully capable of expressing and communicating their lived realities and that those realities are a valued focus of study.
Lessons Learned
When researching childhood, a critical methodological concern is the power dynamics that occur between adults and children. Unequal power can compromise your data and severely distort truth. But more importantly, it can cause harm to your subject.
The new sociology of childhood is a scientific discipline that promotes the process of obtaining assent from children to participate in research. So, how do you seek assent with children?
Hot tip #1: Develop an assent and accountability framework that will help you explain the process of research and its findings in a child-friendly manner and systematically ‘check-in’ with children about their participation in the research.
Hot tip #2: Develop protocols to use when seeking children’s assent that considers as many factors as possible about why they would answer in a particular way.
Hot tip #3: Dedicate time to building relationships and having conversations with the gatekeepers and remember that such conversations need to strike a balance between providing critical information and too much detail that can lead to confusion.
Hot tip #4: Engage in internal reflection through an explicit and systematic process throughout the research process and think about how the insights gained may influence how you converse with children and their gatekeepers.
Rad resources:
If you are starting to think about how to genuinely involve children’s participation in research, you better be ready to read. By reading some of the great material on research with children you can begin to understand children’s position in research – even in our adult-centric world.
Here is some material to get your started on you reading adventure:
- Better Evaluations’ ‘Evaluation and Children’
- UNICEF and Better Evaluations’ Impact Evaluation Series
- Ethical Research Involving Children (ERIC) Website
- Ethical Standards for Research from the NAEYC
- Gerrard Resource Centre at Ryerson University
- The Sociology of Childhood in relation to Children’s Rights [PDF]
- Addressing Adultism & Being an Ally in Youth-Focused Evaluations from AEA365
For more information, please go to my website: www.pettenconsulting.com
The American Evaluation Association is celebrating Youth Focused Evaluation TIG Week with our colleagues in the YFE AEA Topical Interest Group. The contributions all this week to aea365 come from our YFE TIG members. Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
Hello Nick Petten. I am Crystal, a student at Texas A&M Central Texas. Currently in my undergrad for psychology. I am interested in research with children and education. I have worked as a correctional officer for a juvenile state prison. I feel that rehabilitation is not the ideal for individuals who aren’t fully cognitive, socially, and emotionally developed. I would like to examine social learning theories for this kind of population while incarcerated. Just from casual inside observation, there is no benefit to imprisonment of children for minor infractions.
As far as your Hot Tips go, they are spot on. Communication is key. Knowing how to explain something legal or importation in a way they can understand is ideal. This goes hand and hand with building a rapport. Power does play a role in communication with children and could greatly influence how they would answer or willingness to participate in research.
slight correction to earlier comment:
“I used a risk management protocol and critical reflexivity as an evaluator to critically assess my role in the evaluation and *how I may be influencing children’s response to the questions.”
Hi Nick,
Your December 23, 2016 blog post has been of great help to me. I am a bit of a newbie in the world of evaluation, but with great blog resources, like yours, I am learning my way to a better process and results. As you mentioned in your blog post the idea of harm to children being a potential result of our evaluation efforts is professionally scary and I want to be sure I do no harm as I attempt to improve our program delivery.
I am actually taking a course in Program Inquiry and Evaluation through Queen’s, as I progress toward a Professional Master’s in Education. I am currently on sabbatical from Fleming College, where I deliver Employment Ontario programs and services.
One of the programs I am involved in is a youth employment program for 15-19 year olds. I wonder what your definition of a “child” includes or if there are resources that would better help me with that definition. Any thoughts? What I am finding is that, between helicopter parents and lack of experience beyond the bubble-wrap of supportive adults, these youth are very much children at 15, 16 and 17 years of age. So, with your cautions firmly in mind, I am approaching evaluation assuming that these youth are children and am approaching their assent from this perspective. This includes explaining the evaluation in a child-friendly manner, as you described.
Your idea of checking in regularly with the youth and the gatekeepers is very good advice. If not, it may be tempting to get the assent from the youth, then charge forward with my own agenda. This reminds me of common slang they use where they say to me “Wait. What?”. I use the “wait” part to signal me that I need to slow down and check in. The “what” part tells me that I need to speak in clear and concise language and give a level of information that is “just right”. Once I start talking about evaluations it can be very difficult to not unpack the complexity and I certainly don’t want to insult the intelligence of their gate-keepers. Is there anything special you do to prepare for these conversations?
I am very interested in your Hot Tip #2. I find that participating youth are not providing the criticism we need to support program improvement and advocate for change. My hypothesis is that these youth, particularly the 15 year olds, tend to tell me what they think I want to hear. I believe that it has to do with the “unequal power” that you pointed out. I would greatly value any thoughts or advice on how I can get the assent you described, but in a way that sparks more critical thinking.
I wanted also to thank you for your professional opinion about the Rad Resources that support your work. In fact, I just recently used the Better Evaluations and UNICEF resources in my own reading adventure! It seems an endless journey.
I know the youth participating in my programs are bright and thoughtful. They hold the key to meaningful program change and I just need to crack the code to retrieving their honest and critical insights!
Thank you for your work on AEA365. It is helpful and meaningful to me.
Hi Tammy,
Thank you for your thoughtful response to the blog article. I’ll answer your questions and respond in in the same order you ask:
– I use the technical definition of the UN when I refer to children (below 18)
– “Wait. What?” – In preparation for these conversations, I take the time to understand how each stakeholder group may perceive the purpose of evaluation, where they are involved and how they might use the evaluation results. I’ve used stakeholder assessment matrices at times to be systematic about it. I also try to use as much visuals and stories to “unpack the complexity”. A big part of that is understanding where people are in their understanding of evaluation.
– re: Hot Tip #2: I was thinking that this activity/protocols was something that the adult evaluators do throughout the evaluation. If you are interested in facilitating a critical conversation with youth about how they might answer things, that would be interesting indeed. I can relate though, that sometimes it feels like the youth are saying things that they think I want to hear. As such, I recommend spending time explaining the purpose of the evaluation and that this is chance for them to provide feedback to the people that organize programs and services for them. I used a risk management protocol and critical reflexivity as an evaluator to critically assess my role in the evaluation and I may be influencing children’s response to the questions.
Success in your endeavors and apologies for the late response.
Best regards,
Nick (blog article author)