Divergence in Interviews with Children – Improving Research Quality

This paper reports on a design oriented study conducted in close collaboration between two researchers and three preschool teachers. Within this study, a play-based interview script was designed in accordance with theoretically driven principles. Based on this script, the preschool teachers conducted interviews with children from three preschools five times over four semesters. The focus of this paper is methodological, aiming to show how sensitive divergence in these play-based interviews lead to a strengthened research quality. Of importance is that this quality improving divergence would not have been realized without the close collaboration between researchers and preschool teachers.