Abstract
Adapting studies typically run in the lab, preschool, or museum to online data collection presents a variety of challenges. The solutions to those challenges depend heavily on the specific questions pursued, the methods used, and the constraints imposed by available technology. We present a partial sample of solutions, discussing approaches we have developed for adapting studies targeting a range of different developmental populations, from infants to school-aged children, and utilizing various online methods such as high-framerate video presentation, having participants interact with a display on their own computer, having the experimenter interact with both the participant and an actor, recording free-play with physical objects, recording infant looking times both offline and live, and more. We also raise issues and solutions regarding recruitment and representativeness in online samples. By identifying the concrete needs of a given approach, tools that meet each of those individual needs, and interfaces between those tools, we have been able to implement many (but not all) of our studies using online data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. This systematic review aligning available tools and approaches with different methods can inform the design of future studies, in and outside of the lab.
Highlights
Developmental research has tended to lag behind in adopting these alternatives, likely due to the demanding methodological sensitivities required for child participants
The focus in this paper is to highlight the methodological lessons of this past year, to create a framework to help other researchers understand their methodological needs, and to identify available solutions for running developmental studies online
To help researchers identify the best tools to conduct their developmental research online, we focus on a framework that starts with identifying the methodological constraints of a specific study, and we present the available tools that meet those constraints
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated technological trends in psychological research, such as the use of online data platforms to carry out “research at scale.” Developmental research has tended to lag behind in adopting these alternatives, likely due to the demanding methodological sensitivities required for child participants. We discuss issues with recruitment and data quality that may arise with different approaches In this way we hope to ‘organize the methodological toolbox,’ providing an easy reference for researchers to use when designing new studies in order to figure out how best to implement a given study online. The goal of this particular manuscript is to provide a how-to guide, rather than a comprehensive comparison between online and in-person methods (though we believe such comparisons should be a high priority for research in the coming years). We briefly consider issues related to the demographics of online populations and barriers to participation, these issues have already received far more extensive consideration in other work (Lourenco and Tasimi, 2020; Sheskin et al, 2020)
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