PlayFactor: A survey tool informed by children for children

When conducting play research with children, it is crucial to employ methods that amplify children’s perspectives. Qualitative methodologies encompass strong traditions in this regard, whereas quantitative survey methods challenge such aspirations. On a practical level, communicating surveys to children who cannot
read poses a challenge, thus relying on adults to convey children’s statements. On a more fundamental level, tension exists between the poetics of children’s play experiences and quantitative survey methods as possible transmitters of decontextualized data to inform politics and practice. This paper takes up these
challenges by examining the development and use of the survey tool PlayFactor. Based on the design-based research project Playing Transitions, focusing on 5-6-year-old children’s play in school, the paper presents PlayFactor as a novel survey tool for exploring children’s play experiences.
Main contributions:
1) Illuminating potentials and pitfalls of developing a survey tool by children for children
2) Highlighting methodologic measures necessary for using this survey tool in social interaction with children, thus pointing to implications for doing surveys with children,
3) Providing insights into how different groups of children experience different types of play.
The paper will discuss the work’s implications for how we think about surveys as a means for investigating the poetics of children’s play, including limitations and precautions that should be adhered in this regard. The ambition is to discuss the possibility of creating surveys where children’s voices really matter.