© 2008 Nature Publishing Group Conducting qualitative interviews with school children in dental research P. Gill, 1 K. Stewart, 2 E. Treasure 3 and B. Chadwick 4 • Children have traditionally been excluded from personally participating in research, due to a variety of pragmatic and ethical concerns. • Where children’s personal perspectives are sought, proxy information (even from parents) is often inadequate. • Interviews, even with young children, can produce unique, detailed and trustworthy accounts, which can be used to improve understanding on a variety of issues. IN BRIEF PRACTICE This paper explores when and how to conduct qualitative research with children in dentistry, using research interviews as a method of data collection. Methodological guidance is also provided, based on research and a recent dental public health study in which 74 children from Years 2 (6-7-year-olds) and 6 (10-11-year-olds) were interviewed about their understand- ing of and attitudes to food. INTRODUCTION The previous paper in the series 1 explored the most common methods of data col- lection used in qualitative research: interviews and focus groups. This paper explores how research interviews can also be used to collect data from chil- dren in the appropriate dental studies. Whilst research involving children in dentistry is extremely common, the majority of this research has been quan- titative in nature. Although now used with increasing frequency in dentistry, 1. Qualitative research in dentistry 2. Methods of data collection in qualitative research: interviews and focus groups 3. Conducting qualitative interviews with school children in dental research 4. Analysing and presenting qualitative data QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN DENTISTRY 1* Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Health, Sport and Science, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd, CF37 1DL; 2 Research Fellow, Academic Unit of Primary Care, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 2AA, 3 Dean and Professor of Dental Public Health; 4 Professor of Paediatric Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Dental Health and Biological Sciences, School of Dentistry, Cardiff University, Heath Park, Cardiff, CF14 4XY *Correspondence to: Dr Paul Gill Email: PWGill@glam.ac.uk Refereed Paper DOI: 10.1038/sj.bdj.2008.245 © British Dental Journal 2008; 204: 371-374 particularly in dental public health, 2,3 very few childhood dental studies have been conducted using qualitative research methods such as interviews. Yet research has shown that conducting qualitative interviews with children can yield rich, deep, trustworthy accounts and lead to revelations of knowledge not commonly known by adults. 4,5 However, while increasing, qualita- tive research with children per se is still relatively rare, primarily because there are a variety of methodological, pragmatic, cognitive and ethical issues associated with interviewing minors. 6,7 Consequently, children’s perspectives that could be used to improve under- standing and potentially influence pol- icy, practice and future research within dentistry, are not being explored to their fullest potential. Furthermore, the pau- city of existing empirical research with children also limits the scope and guid- ance for future research studies. The purpose of this paper is, there- fore, to explore the potential benefits of conducting qualitative interviews with children, discuss when the approach is appropriate and to offer some practical guidance on when and how to conduct research interviews with school children, based on our recent study 8 in which 74 children from Years 2 (6-7 years) and 6 (10-11 years) in Cardiff, UK were inter- viewed about their understandings of health-related food messages. CHILDREN AND RESEARCH Children have traditionally been excluded from personally participating in research as they have been considered to be too immature. 6 Fundamental con- cerns, particularly in younger children, relate to ethical issues such as vulner- ability, consent and confidentiality. 9,10 There are also concerns about whether children possess the appropriate cogni- tive, linguistic and social skills to pro- vide adult interviewers with reliable and valid interview data. 4,11-13 Whilst disciplines such as dentistry have conducted significant amounts of research involving children, the major- ity of data have generally not been col- lected directly from children themselves. Instead, an adult’s (usually the moth- er’s) opinion of the phenomenon being studied has often been sought. 6 This is primarily because of the tendency to accredit adults with greater knowledge and experience than children, even in matters that affect children directly. 7 Obviously, there are areas where a par- ent is better able to provide informa- tion about their child than the child is, for example in studies that require a detailed knowledge of early childhood illnesses or dental treatment. However, there are often significant differences between parental obser- vations about their children and the child’s own perceptions. For example, when asked about children’s subjective BRITISH DENTAL JOURNAL VOLUME 204 NO. 7 APR 12 2008 371