Developing a New Children's Rights Questionnaire: What Have Kids Got to Do With It?

• In Event: 49.085 - Instrument Development and Validation

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of a statistically reliable and valid research tool to measure the effective implementation of children’s rights. It focuses on the development of one domain of a ‘Children’s Rights Questionnaire’: participation rights. The paper explores the processes through which children as co-researchers were engaged in developing the measure: the capacity building activities designed to assist child co-researchers in understanding the nature of participation rights; and the specific involvement of the children in the development of questionnaire items. The measure was piloted in a large-scale online survey of 3,700 school children and was found to have good reliability and a two-factor structure. The paper discusses the involvement of young children as co-researchers in the development of questionnaires.

Authors

• Katrina Lloyd, Queen's University - Belfast

• Lesley Emerson, Queen's University - Belfast