Parent vs. Sitter

What area of interest/research question do you wish to explore through a research study design?

Are all children, who are raised by parents and sitters, acting differently and more difficult when they are with their parents, especially mothers, compared to how they behave with nannies or babysitters. If so, is there a way to find out why this is happening.

What variables or concepts are you looking to observe and/or manipulate?

Are children more easy going and manageable when they are with babysitters or nannies than they are with their parents or with their parents AND the sitter. Does it matter how much time the parents actually spend with the children? Is there a correlation between the parents giving in to their children’s wishes too easily to compensate their bad feeling about leaving them with a sitter and the children’s less independent and nagging behavior when they are with them?

What type of design would best suit your research question? (Experimental, Correlational, etc)

I choose the Experimental Method.

What research method would you use to conduct your experiment? (Survey, case study, naturalistic observation, lab experiment, etc.)

Due to the fact that the experiment is conducted with children it seems to be the best to use naturalistic observation. In that case there are no other factors than the care giving grownup that influence the children’s behavior.

If applicable, what would you put as your independent and dependent variables?

The independent variables will be the grownups, which will take turns taking care of the children during daily activities. At some point there will be only the mother and/or father, then only the sitter, and at some point both, parent and sitter together.

The dependent variables are the children’s behavior toward the grownups. How are they listening to them, respecting them, interacting with them, etc.

Give a hypothesis about what you think you might find.

I  think (and I have noticed this behavior over the past five years many times) that children are behaving much more dependent and nagging when they are with their parents compared to when they are spending time with a sitter. Children are more independent and more easy-going when they are not with their parents.

What might be the benefits and implications of this study? In other words, who would gain from it?

Parents, caregivers, and children could benefit from a study as the one I chose. Understanding that there is different behavior of children depending who they are surrounded with and why this occurs would make childcare much easier for each party involved.

Please reflect on the process of designing this experiment. What were the challenges you faced? Was this more/less difficult than you expected? How?

The most difficult choice for me was which type of design fits the best for my research. Besides that, I had a hard time formulating what I would like to research and test. The topic is very personal to me, so it is very difficult to stay objective. Other than that, there were no big problems creating the research, since I am very interested in this topic and I would love to know the results.