Child-Participatory Methods

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Over the past 30 years, the position of children in society has changed with increasing recognition of children’s rights and the need to involve them in decisions about their education, social and health care. In recent times as more importance is being given to the rights and views of the child, there has been a pragmatic shift from “research upon children” to “research with children” and the adoption of the concept of child-centered research. Marshman Z has summarized child-centered research as: regarding children as competent and reflexive in reporting their own experiences, giving children a voice, taking seriously what they say and rather than researching on children, working for and with them1.
Most of the research conducted upon children involves quantitative techniques such as questionnaires and scales which restrict children from freedom of self-expression. Consequently, children often experience difficulty in understanding, interpreting the written content and verbal language. In contrast, qualitative participatory methods such as drawings, timelines, vignettes and narratives encourage children to freely express their emotions, feelings and ideas. Thus, through self-participatory methods children’s needs could be understood better, quality of care can be reoriented and further improved.
In the past, few authors have assessed children’s anxiety, fear and behavior using drawings and narratives.1, 2-4 Pond, in 1968, found stories concerned with pain, blood and other signs of aggression in a series of children’s drawings collected by a dentist.5 In a study conducted by Taylor et al. school children were asked to draw a picture of a dentist at work.6 A few other studies using drawings assessed children’s response, anxiety...

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