2.2. Measures
The research conducted for this paper used mixed method design. The rational to use this method is to
incorporate a qualitative component into a quantitative method to get a very powerful mix (Miles and Huberman
1994). Integrating a range of age-appropriate methods into the research study can assist children to express their
daily experiences (Matthews and Tucker 2000). For this purpose, written questionnaire as quantitative and face to
face interview as qualitative method were selected to determine children’s preferences regarding walking to school.
The questionnaire contained questions about children’s transportation mode to and from school, their permission to
travel without accompaniment, their preferences to play on their way to school and back, and permitted time for
children to play in their journey to and from school.
Then, it was followed by Open-ended interview to support the questionnaires and to clarify some of the
children’s responses, preferences, needs, and feelings towards their autonomous travel and play on the way to
school. Nineteen children participated in face-to-face interview separately and away from the classroom with no
teachers or other school authorities present. The results from the interviews contribute to support and complement
the findings obtained by the analysis of the questionnaire.