Children as service evaluators

In recent years there has been a growing interest in methods of eliciting children's views on factors influencing their lives. When children's views are sought it is important that this is done in a developmentally appropriate manner with instruments whose psychometric properties are known. The present review describes a variety of methods that have been used to evaluate children’s satisfaction with services in education, paediatrics and mental health. The majority of the studies used self completion questionnaires and provided only limited information on reliability. Means of establishing reliability and validity in research with children are discussed, as are the variables which have been found to correlate with child satisfaction.