Let's Investigate! -- How Do Children Explore?

For 9-year-olds.

This study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher! Clicking on the "Participate Now!" button will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. After scheduling, you will receive an email with a link to join a Zoom call with your child at the time you selected.

During the call, a researcher will show your child a fun animation of a mechanical toy that lights up for some objects and plays music for others. Your child will get to choose what they want to try on the machine, in order to find out whether a new object is a music maker or not!

In this study, we're interested in how children think about the scientific method. To test this, we show children a character who has a hypothesis (i.e., a guess) about how a toy works, and then give them an opportunity to choose what experiment (i.e., changes to the toy) they should do to find out if the character is right. Will children pick good experiments over bad ones? What about when the bad experiment has a more fun outcome (i.e., the toy will turn on) than the good experiment? Your child’s responses will tell us about which aspects of doing science come easily to young learners, and which do not. This information can allow us to better understand how children learn on their own, and develop ways to help them learn in science classrooms!

10 minutes

We will email you a $3 Amazon gift card within a week. You are eligible for the gift card even if your child does not finish, or we can't use the data. Your child just needs to be in the age range for the study, and you need to submit a valid consent form.