Abstract
This article discusses the use of quantitative measures to foster the agency and capabilities of children and youth research participants, and facilitate opportunities for students to receive social services. Based on unanticipated findings of a cyber bullying study among students in grades 4, 7 and 10, we discuss how quantitative measures identified youth “in distress” and allowed opportunities for students to obtain resources that would be helpful. Data indicate that students were able to express their agency by navigating the quantitative phase of the research process in ways that met their needs. These findings suggest that quantitative methods should be included among a range of research methodologies that can promote children and youth's agency and unique voices; meaningfully engage children and youth; and offer benefits to youth participants.
1. Introduction
In recent years, addressing the ethical dimensions of conducting research with children and youth has been given greater attention across various disciplines (Mishna, Antle, & Regehr, 2004). In response to a historical paucity of research in this area (Lindsay, 2000), a growing body of literature seeks to understand the particular ethical challenges of conducting research with children and youth; how best to respect their agency and capacity in research; provide benefits for child and youth research participants; and offer meaningful participation by children and young people in the development, implementation, and dissemination of research (Barker and Weller, 2003, Goodenough et al., 2003, Grover, 2004 and Skelton, 2008). One outcome of this growing interest has been greater use of qualitative methods generally, specifically participatory action research (PAR) and community-based research (CBR) methodologies. This shift is based on the supposition that these methods have a greater capacity to foster and respect children and youth's agency, and to meaningfully engage partners, and offer greater benefits to child and youth participants (Duckett et al., 2010, Kellett, 2009, Langhout and Thomas, 2010 and Powell and Smith, 2009). Implicit is the view that children and youth who participate in quantitative research will not have an equal opportunity to a) share their world views, b) benefit as much from the research process, or c) express, utilize, and communicate their autonomy, agency, and capacity to the same extent. In light of this, it is important to consider the current status of quantitative methods with respect to conducting ethical research with children and youth.
In this paper we discuss the capacity of quantitative measures to respect and foster the agency, capabilities, and autonomy of children and youth research participants, as well as facilitate opportunities for students to receive social services. This paper is based on the unanticipated findings of the first year of a three-year longitudinal, mixed-methods study on cyber bullying among students in grades 4, 7, and 10 in a large urban school board. Specifically, we focus on the experiences of students identified as being “in distress” which was identified largely through the study's quantitative measures. Data indicate that youth participants were regularly able to express agency and autonomy by navigating the quantitative phase of the research process in ways that met their needs. Further, through a protocol put in place in the ethics process, we utilized the quantitative methods to facilitate social work referrals of students as needed. These findings suggest that quantitative methods should be included among a range of research methodologies that can promote children and youth's autonomy, agency, and unique voices; meaningfully engage children and youth; and offer benefits to youth participants. More broadly, these results suggest that discussion about conducting research with children and youth would benefit from a complex modeling of ethicality with respect to research methodologies, one which does not advance a static or linear correspondence between ethicality and research method.
5. Conclusion
This paper has elucidated some of the potential opportunities and benefits offered to children and youth through quantitative methods. We argue that quantitative methodologies, like qualitative, participatory, and community-based methodologies, have the capacity to be utilized to respect and foster the agency and capabilities of child and youth participants, partner with participants to solve problems that are important to them, and facilitate referral to social work services for children and youth in distress. The sheer number of students who had not previously told adults about their distress and who did not appear to have adequate strategies and resources to cope with their distress indicates that social work services must be highly visible and readily and easily accessible to students. Moreover, research is needed to better understand how to provide access to social services in ways which feel safe, empowering, and easy for students.
