No. Children are less skilled in tools for seeking approval. They are less skilled in covering their feelings, and thinking one thing while doing another. They are more likely to forget the observer is there. That does not make them more honest, simply less able to be anything else. Of course, in any age group there can be the exception. It would be interesting if this precocious child then leads the group one way or another, skewing the results.

Focus groups are very hard to get useful data from, and suffer from the bias that just the opposite is true.

Posted by: on June 25, 2003 08:26 AM

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Focus groups are very hard to get useful data from...

And how. Especially with an "interviewer" telling the kids things instead of asking. And it doesn't help that the teacher chimes in.

~~
Interviewer 1 Shall we put this one in (arranges tree toys in the middle of circle of children). Thank you, you have been very good.

Interviewer 1 there are lots of buttons on it aren’t there?

Interviewer 1 so that’s a problem with it , it’s got too many buttons hasn’t it

Interviewer 1 but don’t you have to read the instructions for this

Interviewer 2 I see so it says - that’s very sensible and straightforward

Interviewer 1 but..but when you just buy a Furby it doesn’t speak any English does it?

Child 4 Oh I got..I got.. there computer chips
Interviewer 1 a circuit board. What’s this one got in it?
James wakes up the Furby
Child 4 Oh James
Interviewer 1 James likes it awake I think, he likes to hear it
Children 4, 7 and 1 stroke the Furby
Class teacher and I’ll tell you something normally James can’t keep still he’s always on the move but that was the first time I saw you really concentrating
Interviewer 1 Obviously it’s a secret classroom....
Interviewer 2 A good investment
General chatter. Attention turns to the Lego and it’s tunes

Posted by: fajalar on June 25, 2003 09:54 AM

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Yeah, Fajalar... the interviewer seemed to be full of loaded questions. Personally, I was hopin' that a kid would be brutal about it... swearing at a fifth grade level :)!

Kid: "It just goes round and round!... I mean, who would play with this f*ckin' piece of sh*t!?"
Inteviewer: !?!?
Teacher: I did not teach him to say that.

But seriously though. The first comment was straight on. Kids are simply uninhibited. They'll say whatever they want, they don't care. You can expect them to be honest about something. Even brutally honest sometimes.

Posted by: Francis Wu on June 25, 2003 03:05 PM

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