Talk with your child about sentences describing people and other things in the world

For 6-9 year-olds

First we will ask you as a the parent to fill out a survey (aprox 6 minutes). After that, you and your child will discuss agreement with sentences about people and other kinds of things in the world (e.g., plants), and you will explain your answers. Some portions of this study will require your child to participate independently (we ask that during these parts you remain neutral because we want to know what they think!) and others will require you to talk to your child (we will indicate when you are expected to talk to your child). Then we will ask your child to do some additional tasks, like grouping pictures in two groups, hearing stories about people interacting with other kinds of things and evaluating them. You and your child must be comfortable listening and speaking in English.

In this study, we are developing multiple tasks to measure how parents and children talk about people and their interactions with other kinds of things in the world and how that impacts children’s thinking. There is already research on parent–child conversations in other areas, and this study builds on that work by testing the same method in a new topic. This study may help us create educational programs that involve families.

25 minutes approximately

If you agree for your child to take part in this research study, you will receive a $5.00 gift card regardless of their answers. Additionally, as part of a question in the parent survey, you will have the option to decide how to allocate an additional $4.00. You may keep some or all of this $4.00 for yourself and/or donate some or all of it to one or both organizations (more details are provided in the survey). To be eligible for the gift card, your child must be in the age range for the study, you need to provide a valid consent statement, we need to see that there is a child with you during the study in the video, and this needs to be the first time that your child is participating in this study. We will also ask you to provide your email at the beginning of the study so that we can send you the gift card. Emails are kept strictly confidential and are used for compensation only. Also, remember that it’s okay to stop at any point during the session and this will not impact the compensation.