freely obtained by contacting Mahy online<\/a> via the Developing Memory and Cognition Lab.<\/p>\nThe paper, authored by Mazachowsky and Mahy, details four studies conducted since Mahy was awarded a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for the project in 2016. Each study marked a key step in the extensive process of developing and vetting questions, testing them online and in the lab, cross-checking for accuracy over time, and finalizing the questionnaire by whittling down 88 possible questions to a final selection of 44 items.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to know how sensitive the questionnaire is to children\u2019s development,\u201d says Mahy, describing the detailed analysis of each question\u2019s validity. \u201cWe asked ourselves: is this actually capturing children\u2019s real ability? Are parents accurate in assessing their children\u2019s abilities in these areas? The results show that the answer is \u2018yes\u2019 for all of these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The development of the questionnaire has proved to be a long journey for Mazachowsky, who began working with Mahy as a master’s student. The first two studies in the paper also made up Mazachowsky\u2019s master\u2019s work, while the third study will appear in her dissertation.<\/p>\n
Mazachowsky believes that this publication has been worth the wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cI gained so many skills through the process, in terms of being able to look at all the domains of future thinking rather than just focusing on one of them,\u201d she says, noting that she also developed several analytical skills and got experience measuring child behaviours in the lab.<\/p>\n
Although the questionnaire is now complete, Mazachowsky will continue working in the area of children\u2019s future thinking based on a gap in the literature that she discovered while working on this manuscript.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lack of research into how children\u2019s saving behaviour develops across the preschool years, and mixed findings in terms of whether children become better savers or stay the same through that preschool age group,\u201d says Mazachowsky. \u201cFrom that, I decided to look at saving on its own in my follow-up PhD studies.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Mahy, the completion of the project is, in some ways, just the beginning. She already has heard from researchers across North America and Europe interested in using the tool in their own studies, and the questionnaire has been translated into Turkish for use in labs in Turkey, suggesting interesting potential for cross-cultural studies and comparisons.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs people use and cite this questionnaire, we can follow that and see how it\u2019s being used and look at what it\u2019s related to in other people\u2019s work,\u201d says Mahy, who plans to maintain a list of publications citing the questionnaire on her web site.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the most exciting thing \u2014 we want to see what\u2019s going to happen next.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thanks to a new paper out of Brock University\u2019s Department of Psychology, anyone studying children\u2019s ability to think about the future can now access a new research tool: an easy-to-administer and highly effective parent questionnaire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":63819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4,5,38],"tags":[3437,426,607,522,29,8679],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63815"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63850,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63815\/revisions\/63850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}