Our Active Projects
We are excited that you’re interested in our studies! We have different kinds of studies for kids at different ages, but not all studies or study types will be available all the time. A list of our currently available studies is listed below in the Active Research Studies section.
Some of our studies take place on our partnership website, Children Helping Science. For these studies, you can participate anytime and from anywhere that you’d like without a researcher present and without needing to schedule a time. Other studies happen at scheduled times with a researcher, either remotely over video chat or at our in-person lab in the Psychology building on Rutgers University’s Busch campus. If you have other questions about participating in our studies, check out our FAQs!
If you’d like to join our database and hear more about new studies your child might be eligible for, please fill out our Sign Up Form.
Active Research Studies
Ready to jump in?! Here is a list of our currently available research studies. But don’t worry if you can’t find something for your child - we regularly add new studies for a range of ages! If you’d like to hear about future study opportunities, you can join our database by filling out this Sign Up Form.
Decide which proportion is bigger!
Ages: 4 to 6-years-old
Location: Over video chat with a researcher. Use our Sign Up form or see our posting on Children Helping Science!
Purpose: Proportions come in so many different shapes and sizes, yet children and adults are often easily able to compare them! A single trip through the grocery store will have you estimating which of two trail mix packages in made up of more raisins, or how much flour you need to double your cake recipe. In this study, we are interested in how people’s ability to make decisions with proportions changes as children get older and when the proportions look different.
Do some of the dogs have a hat?
Ages: 4 to 5-years-old
Location: Over video chat with a researcher. Use our Sign Up form or see our posting on Children Helping Science!
Purpose: There are many ways that language can be used to give quantity information about multiple objects or entities. We use inexact words like “some”, “a few”, “each”, “all”, “most”, and “a lot”, precise numerical words like “three” and “four”, and phrases like “at least four”, “only three”, and “many of the Xs.” In this study, we are interested in children’s preferred interpretation of these phrases, and how they change in different contexts and as they get older.
Comparing quantities while talking?
Ages: 5 to 7-years-old
Location: In our lab at Rutgers University, New Brunswick! Use our Sign Up form or see our posting on Children Helping Science!
Purpose: Proportional reasoning is important to our everyday lives, but people make a lot of mistakes when evaluating ratios, especially when the ratio in question is broken up into parts. This study is looking to explore the causes of this difficulty.