Child Development Laboratory

RESEARCH

The Child Development Lab is available to faculty and graduate students for research purposes. In an effort to balance the needs of researchers with the needs of the children in the preschool, the following goals and guidelines have been established.

Program Goals for Research

1. The CDL will ensure that research activities are safe and compatible with children's ongoing preschool experiences.
2. The CDL will provide opportunities to WSU faculty and students to observe and study the development of children representing the diversity of children living within the metropolitan area of Detroit.
3. The CDL will provide a setting for WSU faculty and students to conduct unobtrusive observation and collection of information on children's growth and development.
4. The CDL will provide access, with staff and parental consent, for research on child development at WSU that may require work with individual children or small groups of children.
5. The CDL will provide a setting, with parental consent and collaboration, for the study of optimal ways of assisting children's development in a preschool environment.

Research Facilities

The Child Development Lab is equipped with observation rooms equipped with one-way mirrors that permit unobtrusive observation of children in every classroom. Sound systems permit collection of audible data from classrooms. A room is also available for individual or small group interviewing and testing.

Research Procedures

Requests for research at the Child Development Laboratory are reviewed for approval by the CDL Executive Director, who has final authority to approve projects conducted in the CDL. Prospective researchers must provide a copy of an approved Human Investigation Committee Behavioral Protocol Summary Form, including an approved consent form for parents.

In addition, researchers should write a cover letter requesting permission to conduct the project at the CDL. The letter should briefly describe the proposed study, state a time line and daily schedule for all aspects of the study involving the CDL, and describe the characteristics of children desired for inclusion in the proposed project. Names and descriptions of everyone who will observe or collect information in the CDL must be included. A description for what children (and staff and parents, if applicable) will be asked to do should be stated in the letter, along with any relevant information not included in the Human Investigation forms. Finally, researchers should indicate what facilities at the CDL they will need for their proposed study.

Once a project is approved by the Executive Director, a copy of the descriptive letter will be given to parents where appropriate, or researchers may be asked to generate a set of the letters addressed specifically to parents. A copy of the consent form must accompany each parental permission letter.

Parental permission is required for taking children out of the classroom, e.g. to the interviewing room or to the playground. Observational studies in which videotapes or films are used also require parental consent. Parental permission is not required for observational studies without videotape or film records.