Children should be seen and also heard: an explorative qualitative study into the influences on children's choice of footwear, their perception of comfort and the language they use to describe footwear experiences

Abstract

Background Footwear has an essential role including protection of the feet, overall performance, foot health and potentially, supporting normal development of the foot. In addition to these physical aspects which may influence choice of footwear design, there are psychological influences on what a person chooses to wear. The concept of footwear ‘comfort’ spans physical and psychological perceptions of comfort in adults. However, there is little understanding of what influences children’s footwear choices, how children perceive footwear comfort, or the language used to describe footwear experiences. Therefore, this study aimed to explore these three parameters as the first step to informing the development of a scale to measure footwear comfort in children. Methods A pragmatic qualitative design with thematic analysis as an analytical approach was implemented. Passive observation and short interviews were carried out with 23 children (aged 1–12 years) at a footwear manufactures headquarters and store. Prompts included shoes being tried on and field-notes were taken relating to verbal and non-verbal communication. Field notes were coded then themes were identified, reviewed and named. Results Overall, the children equated comfort to softness. However, influences on footwear choice were multidimensional including aesthetics, psychosocial influences, identified ‘comfort’ and ‘discomfort’ areas, practical issues and predictive concerns; all interacting with the age of the child. Conclusions For children, footwear comfort is a complex phenomenon having physical, cognitive, social and emotional developmental components. This can be seen in how the children perceive the ‘feel’ of the shoe and how the shoe is assessed in the context of how the shoe meets the child’s physical and psychosocial developmental needs. In younger children footwear preference is related to idiosyncratic tastes in aesthetics, physical ability and comfort. As children age, societal influences begin to expand the social function of footwear denoting group membership, to include themes that transcend the functional and social function of footwear. The knowledge from this study can inform the development of age group specific tools to evaluate comfort.

Australian secondary school principals', parents', and students' attitudes to prescribed school footwear guidelines

“…Footwear comfort is highly valued by students and parents when selecting the shoes, they, or their children, choose to wear to school. These findings are consistent with studies performed in primary school aged children [ 8 , 25 ], as well as adult runners [ 15 , 18 ] and adults with inflammatory arthropathies [ 17 , 33 ]. Parents of secondary school students consider their child’s opinion very important when selecting shoes.…”

“…It is likely that parent and peer opinion are contributors to the selection of school footwear in adolescents. There is a need for greater understanding and consideration of child and adolescent opinions in footwear research [ 24 , 25 ]. Exploring what secondary school students, as well as parents of secondary school students, consider important when choosing school footwear requires investigation.…”

Footwear comfort: a systematic search and narrative synthesis of the literature

“…A study of younger women’s perceptions of dress shoes identified ten criteria which differentiated between comfortable and uncomfortable shoes, the strongest being absence of pain, feeling, sound, and texture [ 17 ]. Finally, in a qualitative study of children, the adjectives soft and padding were most frequently used to describe comfortable shoes, while hard, tight, loose and heavy were used to describe uncomfortable shoes [ 91 ].…”

Australian secondary school principals’, parents’, and students’ attitudes to prescribed school footwear guidelines.

“…For students, appearance of the shoe and comfort were the most important factors when selecting the shoes worn to school. The perception of comfort may be in uenced by the appearance of the shoe as well as individual physiological factors, gender, wear time and psychosocial and developmental needs (24,25,34). As adolescence is a period of signi cant physical and psychosocial change, clothing, and by extension footwear, may provide adolescents with an opportunity to express their identity (35) which may go some way to explaining the high value placed on appearance by our cohort.…”

“…It is likely that parents' opinions are a major contributor to the selection of school footwear in adolescents. There is a need for greater understanding and consideration of child and adolescent opinions in footwear research (24,25). Exploring what secondary school students, as well as parents of secondary school students, consider important when choosing school footwear requires investigation.…”