Using a Story Completion Task to Elicit Young children’s Subjective Well-Being at School

Larisa Lam () and Julie Comay ()
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Larisa Lam: University of Toronto
Julie Comay: University of Toronto

Child Indicators Research, 2020, vol. 13, issue 6, No 16, 2225-2239

Abstract: Abstract Understanding children’s perspectives on how they feel at school is essential to creating school environments that best support their development. Researchers have studied the well-being of children, but young children under the age of 7 are severely underrepresented in this research. This is partly due to the lack of effective methods available to elicit young children’s perspectives. This study pilots a story completion task with young children in order to determine whether this method is an effective way to elicit children’s understanding of their subjective well-being at school. Twenty-five 4- to 6-year-old children from two kindergarten classrooms in a small, urban Canadian private school participated in this study. Despite individual differences, there were commonalities in the way young children perceived their lives at school. Results from a thematic analysis suggest that this method is effective as shown by children’s willing participation, the identification of story themes consistent with previous literature, and children’s engagement with the task.

Keywords: Children’s perspectives; Subjective well-being; School; Early childhood; Research with young children (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1007/s12187-020-09745-5

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