Poster #59 - Associations Between Parent-Report Measures and Behavioral Tasks Adapted for Use in Online Research

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Conducting developmental studies online has become a common, if not necessary, practice in recent years that has created both exciting opportunities and unique challenges for researchers. As we continue to adapt traditional behavioral tasks for online settings, it will be important to reexamine the validity of these measures when used in this new context. At the same time, researchers may also be relying more on parent-report measures of children’s behavior, yet it is unclear how well these measures will align with childrens’ behavior when they are being assessed outside of a highly controlled lab setting.

The current study aims to address these open questions by assessing the convergent validity of multiple behavioral tasks that were adapted for use in online studies with several parent-report measures intended to capture the same psychological constructs. Specifically, we will examine both behavioral and parent report measures of children’s executive function, prosocial behavior, and theory of mind that were collected during an online synchronous Zoom study (see Table 1), and we will determine the correlations between childrens’ observed behavior and parents’ reported behavior within each of these three domains. We hypothesize that children’s scores on the behavioral tasks within each domain will be positively correlated with the scores from the corresponding parent report measure in the same domain.

An anticipated sample of 50 3.5-year-old children and their mothers will participate in this online synchronous Zoom study as part of an ongoing longitudinal study. First, mothers will complete a series of questionnaires through Qualtrics, and then the mother-child dyads will participate in two separate 30-minute Zoom sessions with an experimenter. Table 1 provides an overview of the parent-reported scales and child behavioral tasks that will be examined in the present study.

Once data collection is complete, composite scores will be calculated for each measure by referencing previously published scoring instructions for each measurement tool. Then, we will construct a correlation matrix of all of the composite scores to determine the strength of the correlations between the parent report measures and the child behavioral measures that are intended to assess the same psychological construct (i.e., executive function, prosocial behavior, or theory of mind). When applicable, we will also assess whether scores on a particular subscale within a parent-report measure are related to children’s behavior on part of a task that is meant to tap into a more specific construct, such as assessing whether parent’s report of child sharing behavior specifically is correlated with children’s behavior during the sharing task from the prosocial task battery. Overall, this study will provide valuable information for developmental researchers as they consider which measures are best suited for their future studies in light of the constraints and limitations of conducting research in online settings with young children.

Authors

• Johanna Rebecca Chajes, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author

• Kenn Dela Cruz, University of Virginia - Charlottesville

• Jessica A Stern, University of Virginia - Charlottesville

• Tobias Grossmann, University of Virginia - Charlottesville