Methodological Issues in a Survey of Children's Online Risk-Taking and Other Behaviours in Europe

Abstract Survey researchers confront a variety of problems when interviewing children and these are compounded when the research includes thousands of children across multiple countries. This article analyses some of the pre-testing and cognitive interview data in the EU Kids Online study for the difficulties children had in answering questions related to risk, patterns of answers to the final questionnaire provided by the children, and the evidence for providing socially desirable answers to questions related to risk and sensitive information. The format of the administration of the survey in the field was also examined. Age, but not gender, differences were found in understanding, response rates, levels of completion for an open-ended question, and in social desirability influences on answers. The format of administration (CAPI versus PAPI) made no difference in responses to sensitive or risk behaviour-related questions, but the presence of others in the room was related to less socially desirable responses. The research contributes to the methodological considerations of survey research with children. Keywords: cognitive interviewsensitive questionsinterviewing childrenCAPIPAPIrisk behaviourcultural differences Notes 1. Note that the data were not weighted for these analyses. 2. CAPI countries included Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. PAPI countries were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania and the UK. Selection of the format was based on availability of equipment in the fieldwork companies. 3. An overall measure of interview length with parent and child combined was tabulated. The average length was 55.8 min, with older children taking a slightly longer time (56.3 min) versus 55.9 min for 9- to 10-year-olds. No separate measures of the child interview were taken.