Confidence in the classroom

For children in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade (approximately ages 7-10) who reside in the US. Each child can only participate in this study once.

This study will take place on a video call with a researcher! Clicking “Schedule a time to participate” will send you to an online calendar where you can select a date and time that works for you. Children will listen to a brief audio recording from a peer before completing age-appropriate math and reading questions. Before and after answering questions, they will be asked how confident they feel about their answers and they will also complete a short questionnaire about how nervous they feel when doing math and reading activities. This study will help us learn more about how hearing other children’s thoughts about schoolwork may influence children’s own confidence.

The goal of this study is to explore whether hearing another child express high or low confidence before a school task influences children’s own confidence and performance. Past research has shown that children do pick up on their peers’ general attitudes towards subjects like math, and that this can influence how they feel about their own abilities. What is less clear is whether a single comment from a peer is enough to shift a child’s confidence in their own ability. Children in this study will listen to a brief audio recording of either a confident or non-confident peer. Then, they will report their own confidence before answering a set of math and reading questions. We will examine whether hearing different kinds of peer messages is related to children’s confidence, performance, and feelings about math and reading.

20 minutes

$5 Amazon gift card. Within a week of your participation in this study, we will email you a $5 Amazon gift card, which you can redeem at amazon.com. To be eligible for the gift card: 1) your child must be in the age range for this study, 2) you need to submit a valid consent statement, and 3) we need to see that there is a child with you.