About Younger Voice - How can we discover children’s opinions?

It is usually extremely difficult, time consuming and expensive to contact the “Tween” age group and find out how they think and behave, and to engage them in your products, services or issues.

• You could promote your ideas on the web, on TV or radio or in print, but it’s expensive and the audience is undifferentiated
• You won’t know if you’re reaching real children of the age you wish to learn about, or influence and their participation with your content may be fleeting and minimal
• You could stop children in the street, visit their homes or their schools, but these are slow and expensive methods, the child-protection implications are significant and the result of research, for example, is vulnerable to interviewer bias
• You could run a survey or user-test an idea or resource on your own website, or one which attracts children, but you won’t know the true age of the respondents, and they may not be motivated to tell you the truth

  Younger Voice reaches out to 6-14 year old children in their schools and their homes through online communities, hosted by Intuitive Media. The research process, managed by SurveyDigital, is quick, cost-effective and ethically sound.

  At last you can find out children’s opinions
  Discover how they think and behave in relation to your client's or your own ideas and products. Now you can also engage children in educational activity around your issues.

Younger Voice is a joint venture between SurveyDigital and Intuitive Media. Both companies have a long history in the education field, bringing together expertise and experience from a wide range of disciplines. The following services are offered through Younger Voice:

1. Research Surveys
Now you can commission research into this population of web-savvy digital-natives. What do they do? What do they think? What do they need? What do they want? Younger Voice will create an online children’s survey to help you find out exactly what you need to know. Find out more here.

Alternatively, embed your research tools in the communities and receive your results directly - with profiling data attached for each respondent.

2. Test Zones
Now you can engage large numbers of children in online user-testing and quickly gather their feedback on your ideas and resources. You can see their responses to your first ideas or sketches, engage them in hands-on testing of your prototypes or reviewing your finished projects. Find out more here.

3. Learning Channels
Now you can engage, educate and influence an online community of over 160,000 UK children, who are hungry to learn. The Learning Channels focus on dedicated online magazines where children participate in creative challenges, quizzes and competitions, forum discussions and expert hot seats on your issues. Find out more here.

The partners in Younger Voice
SurveyDigital is a research consultancy, uniquely dedicated to education. Its clients include the Department for Children, Schools and Families, British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, Design Council, Learning & Teaching Scotland, National College for School Leadership, The National Trust, The National Assembly for Wales and the Training and Development Agency for Schools. It undertakes evaluations, questionnaires, focus groups and case studies using web technologies and a skilled team of researchers.

Intuitive Media Research Services is a division of Intuitive Media Limited, provider of Protected Learning Communities for children and teachers

IM Research Services provides ethical Research, User-Testing, Education and Marketing services to private organisations, government agencies, media, PR and marketing agencies, including, for example: Department for Children, Schools and Families, British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, Department for International Development, BBC, Ipsos-Mori, National Academy for Gifted & Talented Youth and New Media Age.

Their research partners and clients have one thing in common ­ an interest in this population of young web-savvy digital-natives and their teachers.

Research Advisory Panel
Intuitive Media is advised and supported by an eminent panel of education researchers including:

Prof. Ben Fletcher, Head of Psychology, University of Hertfordshire

Prof. Karen Pine, Education Psychology, University of Hertfordshire

Prof. Martyn Wild, La Trobe University, Melbourne

Prof. Stephen Heppell, CEO, Heppell.net

© SurveyDigital 2007, 2008