Category Archives: Children’s Research

A child psychologist asked me years ago how I knew whether a scale was working.  His comment was that developing a new attribute scale would be cause for intense debate amongst peers and colleagues.  First and foremost, you need to have some sense that the scale means something to a young consumer.  How do youContinue reading “Children’s Rating Scales – How do I know they are Working?”

Children are quite able to recognise flavours, sweetness levels and other concrete product attributes with relative ease.  More conceptual attributes are more difficult.  If scales are too subtle, children become bored with a task which is “too hard” and which they do not understand.   Pictures need to convey a clear idea of what is beingContinue reading “Children’s Research – Concrete vs Conceptual Scales”

So if you want to use picture scales with children, how are you going to show intensity of a flavour?  Visually, you have at least a couple of choices.   You can make things BIGGER or show MORE of them. If you are trying to get information about overall flavour intensity (= total flavour impact), IContinue reading “How do you Show Intensity in Pictorial Scales?”

I have always wondered what the most positive end of the Smiley Face scale means to children.   Does it say “This product is yummy”?   Or does it say “I am happy”? Those are two very different things. I had a scale developed with a facial scale that drew the faces in more detail and whichContinue reading “Smiley Face Scales – Am I Happy? Is it Yummy?”

OR? Traditionally, research with younger children has often used the so-called “Smiley Face Scale” to measure acceptability of products.  They have also been used in cross-cultural studies where respondents are illiterate and word-anchored or numerical scales are inappropriate. Researchers have debated the format of this scale for years.   Should it use photographs?  Should it showContinue reading “Smiley Face Scale – Does it Engage?”