As the children were only eight years old it was decided that they should be
allowed to say what they wanted to say as much as this was logistically
possible. Children should be allowed to speak freely and the interviewer would
only interfere when this became necessary, for example to clarify a point or to
move on to the next question when children had exhausted what they wanted to
say. The interviewer should also respond in a positive way to anything the
children said beyond the immediate concern of a question so as to encourage
them to be as 'natural' as possible. In the event, interviewing 8-year old
children did not prove to be an easy matter. It became clear that what might
have been a straightforward question for one child had to be rephrased for
another and while some children could just 'talk' without much prompting others
found it difficult to talk 'ad hoc'. The interviewer tried to adjust to individual
children's responses as much as this was possible and the precise nature and
the order of questions during the interviews consequently had to be flexible.
Although every attempt was made to adjust to individual children's responses,
the possibility that some 'follow-up' questions might have slightly ∞nfused some
children some of the time cannot be totally excluded.
Interviews were conducted in the school library with one child at a time.
Different possibilities, such as paired interviews or group interviews had been
contemplated but it was decided that individual interviews would be the best
way forward as children were less likely to be influenced by the views of their
peers. Any potential problems the 'more shy' children might experience were
largely avoided by the class teacher sending the more confident children first.
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