Children’s understanding of comparative concepts

Authors: Wahida Walibhai, Gabrielle Bailey, Dr. Katherine Twomey, Dr. Alissa Ferry

This project focuses on school-age children’s understanding of the distinction between the concepts “bigger” and “smaller”. While these comparative concepts are developmentally important, our previous research suggests that children may not fully understand the distinction until surprisingly late. A two-phase behavioural study will be conducted in primary schools. First, children’s understanding of the bigger/smaller comparison will be tested in a hunt-the-sticker game. Second, their knowledge of the words themselves will be tested in a choose-and-point paradigm. Our primary analysis will examine whether children do indeed understand these concepts, and our secondary analysis will explore the relationship between the presence of these words in children’s lexicons with their understanding of the concepts themselves. 

Applying open research practices

The research team consists of two faculty members supervisors and two third-year psychology students on their year placement. With the guidance of the supervisors, the students wrote and submitted a detailed preregistration to the Open Science Framework. We plan to share all material, data and code on Open Science Framework on completion of the study, and will post a pre-print on PsyarXiv prior to publication. In line with our funders’ requirements, all publications will be open-access.

Overcoming challenges

As with planning any study there can be an element of not knowing whether the decision the research team is the right one. Preregistering can feel very final. However, the benefit is that you are forced to clearly motivate your decisions, which is beneficial for future writing-up. 

Benefits of using these open research practices

First, preregistration forces researchers to carefully consider the rationale, design and analysis so any problems are pre-empted before testing begins. Second, leading the preregistration gave the students in-depth insight into the entire research process providing them with valuable experience for their dissertations and intended future research careers. Student researchers gave substantial input into the design and took ownership over the process, giving them project management experience which they would not have gained from running a pre-designed study. Finally, learning about the preregistration process prompted discussions about open science, the reproducibility crisis and other issues important to contemporary psychology.

Top tip

It’s not difficult but it is incredibly useful! Open Science Framework makes preregistration straightforward and takes you through the process step-by-step.

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