Ensuring Inclusivity and Well-being of Children Call for Accuracy in Ethical (Design) Practices: Making the Interpersonal Aspects of Data Collection Explicit and Value-centred by Scaffolding the Quality Criterion of 'Sincerity' in Human-involved Research
Antonia Clasina Södergren · 2024
This paper explores how ethical and value-related factors can be explicitly integrated to create valid data collection environments while dealing with sensitive participants in interpersonal dynamics. During a three-year PhD study, various grounded theoretical in-situ observations were conducted on preschoolers and groups of up to 120 children aged 2.5 to 6, along with four case studies and several design experiments in a kindergarten. Audio and video data reveal that socio-material factors heavily influence preschoolers' behaviour, either constraining or promoting their expression of child resources. These influences affected the appearance of their skills and the validity of research outcomes. Results of all data collection efforts showed sincerity was a practical quality criterion and framework for research when considering the value-centred child role child as centrality. The framework consists of eight focus areas with allocated practical applications, aiming to inspire well-defined standards for ethical design practices with consistency across various participant groups and scenarios. The paper proposes adding the sincerity quality criterion to the methodology section of research projects. As framework, it formalises comparable ethical data collection practices prioritising participants' rights, inclusivity and well-being while demonstrating ecological validity and flexibility towards variations in contingency.