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Understanding research with children and young people
Understanding research with children and young people

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7 Summary of the course

Congratulations, you have now reached the end of the course!

A cartoon image of multiple hands giving the thumbs up, and clapping, with stars all around them.

You have seen how involving children and young people in research that affects their lives:

  1. creates better research
  2. fulfils children’s and young people’s rights
  3. brings benefits for children and young people
  4. empowers them to lead their own research and participate effectively in research with others.

You have looked at carrying out research from a practical as well as a theoretical point of view and we hope the examples and ideas you have been studying have been useful and inspiring. This course has demonstrated how you, as an adult practitioner or a young person yourself, could approach research with the children and young people you are already working with. We have highlighted the key issues and benefits of making that research as participatory as possible, and you have used all that you have been studying to help you formulate your own action plan. We hope that you now feel fully confident to embark on your own project and we wish you every success with it.

Throughout the course, you have encountered occasional references to the Our Voices website, which is designed to accompany and complement this course. There, you will find ‘Research Planning Tools’ for anyone who has an immediate research project in mind. Children or young people who are thinking of taking part in research will find ‘Taking Part in Research’ a particularly useful resource on this website. The Our Voices website takes a broader view of research with children and young people and the principles underpinning a spectrum of different research approaches with and by children and young people. This may give you further ideas about possibly developing and maintaining your own service which offers a response to future research requests from or on behalf of children and young people.

Our Voices website [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Another valuable link is below; MyShout! was developed by Dr Cindy Kerawalla for the Children’s Research Centre at the Open University to support young people (aged 12+) who want to carry out their own social science research. Through completion of online activities, it supports young people’s understanding of the research process including the research question, methods, ethics, data collection, data analysis, and dissemination of findings.

Supporting young researchers with ‘MyShout!’