Appendix B - Methodology

This study began with qualitative interviews of toy developers, children’s ministry leaders, educators, child development specialists and technology professionals. These interviews were conducted in the fall of 2018 and used a flexible script to explore respondents’ experiences in their specific fields.

A set of quantitative online surveys was subsequently conducted September 17 to October 18, 2018, using an online panel. The sample included 508 self-identified U.S. Christian parents of children ages 6 to 12 who are engaged in their Christian faith. Barna defines “engaged” as follows: They have attended a Christian church service within the past month (other than for a holiday or a special event); they strongly agree that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and contains truth about the world; they strongly agree that they believe Jesus Christ was crucified and raised from the dead to conquer sin and death; they strongly agree that they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today; and they strongly agree that they desire to pass faith on to their child.

The margin of error for this sample is +/- 4.2 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

All research that seeks to capture the dynamics of a population has inherent limitations, but is useful to observe patterns and differences that reveal insights about the surveyed group. Online panels are a collection of people who have pre-agreed to take surveys for compensation, which may represent some motivational biases, so our surveys include quality control measures to ensure respondents are providing truthful and thoughtful answers to questions.

When Barna samples from panels, respondents are invited from a randomly selected group of people matching the demographics of the U.S. population for maximum representation. For this study, researchers set quotas to obtain a minimum readable sample by a variety of demographic factors and weighted the data by region, gender, ethnicity and education to reflect their natural presence in the U.S. population (using U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics data for comparison). More specifically, we weighted the data to reflect those U.S. adults who have Generation Z children.

Partly by nature of using an online panel, these respondents are slightly more educated and higher earning than the average American. Also, due to the natural makeup of the practicing Christian population, the proportion of black adults is greater than Hispanic adults when compared to the general U.S. population.