Child-centric methodology

A principal of a primary school mentioned in our correspondence "...the perceived dichotomy against using digital media to promote a healthy eating message when one of the biggest obstacles to improving children’s health and well being is balancing nutrition with physical exercise." this is something I think I will definitely have to address somehow.

The primary research methodology to be employed is an active research technique, or projective research technique - "which have been used successfully in consumer behaviour studies and can provide a fruitful means to elicit responses from children - particularly for abstract themes and ideas." (Banister and Booth, 2005). The children ("respondents") will be encouraged as far as possible to discuss the following issues.

This will be approached from 2 angles:

• The healthy eating focus group, concentrating on these points:

1. discuss favourite foods and breakfast cereals,
2. discuss what do you (the respondents) think is healthy food,
3. do you know the food pyramid or how much should you eat? - gauging the effectiveness of existing HEHA guidelines and the Mission-On/Team-Up initiative,
4. which will be followed up by drawing/writing exercises that correspond and reinforce the discussion topics above
   

• and the character design angle, concentrating on these points of research:

1. discuss your favourite cereal mascot,
2. discuss your favourite television/cartoon characters,
3. draw/write about your favourite cereal/cartoon character,
4. here's the tricky part; draw yourself with your best friend,
5. and draw yourself, your friends, and your favourite character doing something healthy.

The wording will be a little different, as the younger respondents might be asked to choose food options for an imaginary character, ie, what do you think "Bobby" or "Jane" should eat at breakfast or during the morning tea break, and why?

I have a particular interest in this angle, as there have been research that shows children form empathic bonds with characters/people who share their physical characteristics. This also serves as an initial character design ideation process, and forms the first of hopefully several more interactions with the focus groups as part of an iterative design process.

"Tell me why"

This will be complemented with audio recordings (with consent) and other strictly observational researchers. There have been observations on childrens/respondents' reaction to audio recording devices, but if it's clear from the outset the role of the recorder, then it becomes an invaluable tool.

Drawing tools will be interesting as well. Traditionally, teachers favour the use of thick, colourful crayons over pencils, but "the pencil also has advantages over the crayon, one of the most important being the amount of fine detail that can be achieved with it; for this reason, the figures that children draw in pencil are likely to be more advanced developmentally." (Cox, 1992). A good compromise would be, in my opinion, a combination of pencil, slightly thicker coloured pencils, and an assortment of crayons.