A Pan-European study on children's online experiences: contributions from cognitive testing

The EU Kids Online research on children’s experience of and ability to cope with risks faced several challenges: the large number of countries involved (25 countries); 2) interviewees were children aged from 9-16 (along with one parent), 3) the main focus was on the sensitive topic of online risks. In order to address these challenges and prior to the survey, cognitive testing was conducted in all the participating countries. This involved in-depth interviews to evaluate children’s understanding of the questionnaire, their ability to answer each question, any ambiguities or other difficulties that emerged and in general how their felt about the process of answering the questions. This paper reports the issues that arose, how the questionnaire was (re)designed, and hence the overall relevance of these tests and the insights they provide more generally for cross-national surveys and those aimed at children.