Children as respondents in survey research: Cognitive development and response quality

Abstract

Although children are no longer a neglected minority in official statistics and surveys, methodological knowledge on how to survey children is still scarce. Researchers have to rely mainly on ad-hoc knowledge from such diverse fields as child psychiatry and educational testing, or extrapolate from methodological knowledge on how to survey adults. In this article, we review the available literature on children as respondents and present the first results of a secondary analysis of the influence of cognitive development on response quality. We end with recommendations for surveying children