My kids are at a stage in life where they're too young to seek regular employment, yet they've got holes burning in their pockets to spend money on some wishlist items. How does our family bridge that gap? University research studies.
Did you know that university research programs are constantly looking for kids (of all ages) to help them better understand our ever-evolving world? From social sciences to developmental milestones, scientists and researchers seek families for a whole slew of studies throughout the year. The exciting news for you? They'll often compensate participants for their time!
In addition to the monetary benefit, my kids are gaining some lifelong skills. They're learning how to assess the value of their time, build a work ethic, communicate with adults, and ultimately understand something new about the world around them. It's a win-win for the universities and participants alike.
While many universities require in-person visits, there are many opportunities to participate virtually. Listed below are some actively recruiting university studies that kids can complete without leaving the comfort of their homes.
Studies are listed below by minimum age requirement.
Important Note: My family has not participated in all of these studies, so we recommend doing your own research before signing up. This list is merely a starting point to help inspire your family's university research participation.
University Research Studies for Babies: |
Duke Health: RISE Study
Ages: 5-7 months
Study Time: 80 minutes (20 minutes for the child, 40-60 minutes for the caregiver)
Compensation: $25 Amazon gift card with follow-up participation earning an additional $25 Amazon gift card
Your baby will see a series of videos while we record how they respond. These videos include children playing, geometric figures, objects, and patterns.
The New School: Fashion Detectives ~ How Babies Classify People Through Clothing
Ages: 5-7 months
Study Time: 30 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Your baby will be presented with a series of pictures of adults wearing traditional clothing from a non-Western society. The pictures will be paired with either a naming phrase or beep tones. Following this, your baby will see pictures of two women, side by side, one from the same non-Western society as the earlier photos, the other from another non-Western society. Researchers are interested in which person your baby looks at longer.
Boston College: Which is More?
Ages: 5-9 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch short movies with sounds. First, your baby will see movies that pair short sounds with small numbers of squares, and play longer sounds while showing a larger number of squares.
University of Maryland, College Park: Listening to Stories in New Languages
Ages: 5-14 months (who have NOT heard French or Mandarin Chinese)
Study Time: 30 minutes
Compensation: $5 Credit on Tango
Your baby will listen to somebody speaking French and Mandarin Chinese. A moving image will be on one side of the screen when your baby hears French, and on the other side of the screen when your baby hears Mandarin. Researchers will record your baby’s eye movements to see which side of the screen they look at when each language is playing.
Rutgers University: Do Babies Pay Attention to Ratios
Ages: 6 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will look at pictures of orange and blue shapes. The proportion of shapes that are orange will be different in some pictures. Researchers will measure how long your baby looks at each picture.
Rutgers University, New Brunswick: What's Counting for Babies? 3.0
Ages: 6-8 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch different numbers of toys being pointed at and labeled in different ways (such as "one, two, three" or "this, this, this"). Researchers are interested in how babies react to different types of activities that resemble counting.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Meet Our Animals
Ages: 6-12 months
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Babies will watch a series of animated animals. At the beginning of each trial they will first be shown a spinning star and then an animated animal. After some time, the animation may change. This will happen over a few trials as we observe how your child reacts to these changes.
Harvard University: Babies' Relationships with Their Caregivers
Ages: 7-11 months
Study Time: 20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch videos of you and an unfamiliar adult. We’re curious about how babies think about their parents and guardians, relative to strangers.
Harvard University: Who is the Caregiver?
Ages: 8-10 months
Study Time: 15-20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch videos of animated characters who interact with each other (e.g., asking for food and crying). We'll examine how your baby attends to the videos.
University of Essex: Does a Smartphone Disrupt Play Time?
Ages: 9-10 months
Study Time: 35-40 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Babies and their caregivers will interact while the adult is asked to complete simple tasks on his/her phone. Babies will be shown a short video to watch of an adult looking at some toys.
Loyola University Chicago: FaceLook
Ages: 9-12 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Babies will see faces of different ages and races. Researchers will measure how long they look at each face.
Northwestern University: Who is This Animal?
Ages: 11.5-12.5 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch a short video filled with cute, stuffed animals and hear names for these animals (like "dax"). Then, the animals will hide behind a screen, and your baby will watch as the screen is raised. Researchers will record how interested your baby is in looking at what animal comes out from behind the screen.
University of Southern California: Baby Learning Patterns
Ages: 12 months (within 2 weeks of their 1st birthday)
Study Time: 20 to 30 minutes
Compensation: $15 Amazon gift card
During the study, your baby will watch some videos containing an animated baby and hear some silly new words.
Loyola University Chicago: Face the Faces!
Ages: 12 months
Study Time: 5 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will watch short videos of women reciting a children’s story. The video will either have a matching or a non-matching soundtrack. Then, we will show your baby pictures of the same people, or a new face. We want to see which face your baby will pay attention to more.
American University: People, Places, and Things!
Ages: 12-15 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Babies will see pairs of pictures of common things (ex. faces, animals, bottles) for about 5 seconds each. Researchers will observe how long babies look at each photo.
University of Chicago: Share With Me!
Ages: 14-16 months
Study Time: 10-20 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch several short videos of a person giving food items to others. Researchers want to see which sharing event your baby chooses to look at.
Northwestern University: Learning About Hidden Creatures
Ages: 14-16 months (first session) and 22-24 months (second session)
Study Time: 15 minutes per session; 2 session
Compensation: $20 in Amazon gift cards. ($5 Amazon gift card is sent after the first session; the remaining $15 Amazon gift card is sent after the final session is complete.)
Babies will be tested to imagine and name a thing they have never seen. Researchers will also measure their memory and attention.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Tell Me About It!
Ages: 14-24 months
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your toddler will watch some short scenes (about 10 seconds long) and will be under the impression that you (the adult) missed some of that scene. Your child will then be asked to tell you what happened during the portion of the scene that you "missed".
Boston University: Baby's First Plants
Ages: 15-17 months
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
On a video call, researchers will try to uncover how infants distinguish between different categories of objects, specifically plants. Your baby will watch short videos showing a plant and either a doll or a ball before responding.
Harvard University: Abstraction for Babies
Ages: 15-18 months
Study Time: 20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch a video, in which an experimenter will show some shapes and pictures and explain the relation among them (e.g., 'same', 'three', etc.).
University at Buffalo: Learning Words from Multiple People
Ages: 16-17 months
Study Time: 20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will be shown images on the screen while hearing sounds and words that go along with them. Researchers will play these for them as long as they are interested in them, and stop when they are no longer interested. They'll record how long they want to listen to different types of images and sounds.
University of Chicago: Hey Stranger!
Ages: 17-19 months
Study Time: 7-10 minutes for the baby; an additional 15-30 minutes for the adult
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Babies will watch a video and researchers will observe their reactions.
University of Chicago: Sweet Little Eavesdroppers
Ages: 18, 24, & 30 months
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will watch a 3-minute video in which they will see pairs of objects on the screen while hearing the names of those objects. Afterward, you will fill in a 7-minute survey asking about which words your kid knows, where your child usually hears them, and whether your child is interested in them. You will help researchers find out how children's word knowledge is related to word frequency in different contexts.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: Learning to Learn Words
Ages: 22-25 months
Study Time: 30 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
On the day before the video call, your child will watch a 5-minute learning video to get familiar with the study. During the video call, researchers will measure what they've learned from the learning video. Your child will see two puppet videos on the screen, and hear sentences that match one of the videos. Researchers are interested in which video your child looks at longer.
University Studies for Toddlers & Preschoolers: |
University of Toronto Scarborough: Who's Happy?
Ages: 24-29 months
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will see pictures of children showing different emotional expressions, and hear prompts like, "Who is happy?" Researchers want to see which picture your child looks at.
University of Southern California: Can You Find Another
Ages: 2-3 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your baby will watch videos asking them to find another object that is the same as the one presented in the video. Your baby then will choose among 4 objects that have different shapes and colors.
University of Southern California: Accentuating Attitudes on Accent
Ages: 2-3 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
This study looks at how toddlers react and respond to different English accents (American, Mexican, and Chinese). In the study, the toddler will listen to a few clips featuring two bears talking in three different types of accents. They will then be asked to answer some simple questions.
Rutgers University, New Brunswick: Whose Cookies?
Ages: 2.5-3.5 years
Study Time: 20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
The study will take place on a video call, live with a researcher.
Florida International University: Train To Be A Scientist
Ages: 33-40 months
Study Time: 2.5 hours total across four sessions
Compensation: $50 Amazon gift cards total
New York University: Listen and Find Panoo!
Ages: 3-4 years
Study Time: 20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will be exposed to recorded audio that introduces Panoo, a little toy animal. Panoo will hide in different places around the screen, and your child will look for him. Sometimes, your child will need to find Panoo when there is another toy that looks just like him, and your child will get a hint for which one is Panoo, such as “Panoo is not wet!”.
Princeton & NYU Discoveries in Action: Conversations About People
Ages: 3-5 years
Study Time: 3 sessions x 15-20 minutes each
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Lafayette College: Caregiver Support of Early Childhood Learning
Ages: 3-5 years
Study Time: 10 days
Compensation: $20 Amazon gift cards total
After completing a survey, you will receive instructions to download a free mobile app, which has been randomly assigned to you, to use with your child for at least 5 minutes during a 10 day period.
Princeton & NYU Discoveries in Action: Learning About Categories
Ages: 3.5-5.99 years
Study Time: 15-20 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Florida International University: Attention & Learning in Early Childhood
Ages: 4-5 years
Study Time: 2 sessions, 1 hour each
Compensation: $50 Target gift card ($20 after the first session, $30 after the second session.)
The study will take place via Zoom, live with a researcher.
Standford University: Who Said That?
Ages: 4-5 years
Study Time:15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
First a researcher will have a short conversation with your child where they mention surprising pieces of information. The researcher will mention that you or the researcher's parent knows about one of your child’s favorite things (e.g., your child’s favorite food or movie). We are interested in children's reactions to these surprising pieces of knowledge!
Rutgers University, New Brunswick: How Are These Aliens Different?
Ages: 4-6 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will interact with a live researcher and watch some videos featuring a friendly alien named Weepo, who would like to teach your child new words to describe his alien friends. When it's time, Weepo will ask your child to choose between two screens with pictures of aliens, based on what they saw and heard.
Pacific Lutheran University: Who's In My Storybook?
Ages: 4-7 years
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child will be shown pictures of storybook characters and asked to describe what they think those characters are doing or what they would like to do.
University Studies for Elementary-Aged Students: |
Princeton & NYU Discoveries in Action: Neighborhoods and Friendships
Ages: 4-8 years
Study Time: 10-15 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Princeton & NYU Discoveries in Action: Learning Through Stories
Ages: 4.5-7.9 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Yale University: Guess What the Teacher Will Do
Ages: 5 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Giftogram gift card
Your child will see and hear stories about students in a classroom. In each story, the student will state their interests (e.g., "I really like engineering!") and then a teacher will select a game in the classroom to give to the student. Your child will guess which game the teacher gave to the student.
Harvard University: Let's Help the Aliens Count
Ages: 5-6 years
Study Time: 30 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon Gift Card
Children play a total of three short number games with a researcher, which involve counting, saying the next number after a given number, and doing very simple addition (+1 or +2).
UC Santa Cruz: Perception of US History and Race
Ages: 5-6 years
Study Time: 1 hour
Compensation: Up to $30
The study will take place via Zoom, live with a researcher.
Standford University: What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Ages: 5-6 years
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Tango Gift Card
Researchers will ask your child about their interest in various careers. For most children, we will also read them excerpts from three storybooks about women in different careers; others will not hear any excerpts and will only be asked about their interests.
Wake Forest University: What Do You Think About Other Children's Friends?
Ages: 5-7 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon Gift Card
Your child will see photos of children who vary along dimensions such as gender, age, race, hair color, eye color, and shirt color. Your child will be asked to sort the photos to demonstrate what dimensions they view as most important.
University of Waterloo: Help the Monster
Ages: 5-7 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: Entered into a drawing for a $50 Amazon Gift Card
Your child will watch as two sets of balls move behind a box one at a time. Then, a cup will scoop up some of the balls, and they will be shown two new sets of balls, and asked which of the new sets has the same number of purple and blue balls as the cup.
University of Waterloo: All About Belonging
Ages: 5-7 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: Entered into a drawing for an Amazon Gift Card
Your child will complete a survey that asks questions about your child’s sense of belonging to their community and a program they are part of.
Emory University: What Do You Care About?
Ages: 5-10 years
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon Gift Card
Children will see different people, animals, and things and be asked how much they care about each item by sorting them into different circles.
UMass Amherst: What Do Kids Think About People And the World Around Them?
Ages: 5-12 years
Study Time: 30-40 minutes
Compensation: $5
The study will take place via Zoom, live with a researcher.
Fordham University: Tell Me About the Leader
Ages: 6-year-old girls
Study Time: 15 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
What do children think people in charge are like? This study aims to answer this question in two ways. First, researchers present children with characters and ask them to choose who's in charge. Next, researchers tell children stories about boys and girls who are in charge and ask them to tell us what they think they are like.
Emory University: What Do You Think of Robots?
Ages: 6-9 years
Study Time: 10 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Children will be introduced to four different robots and told some short stories about the robots. Then children will be asked to give their opinions about the robots and the short stories that involved them.
University of Virginia: Curious About Curiosity
Ages: 6-10 years
Study Time: 25-30 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
This study will involve playing an online computer game through Zoom where children interact with different mystery elements, such as shapes, animals, or countries, to learn different facts about each of them. Children will end the study by reading through a short story about children at school with the researcher and answering questions about what they learned in the story.
James Madison University: Detective Adventures
Ages: 7-8 years
Study Time: 30 minutes
Compensation: $10 Amazon gift card
Your child will see faces and objects on a screen online through Zoom.
Stanford University: Teach Maggie about Transformations
Ages: 8 years
Study Time: 15-20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon gift card
Your child and a puppet called Maggie will meet Andy, who is working on an exciting project aimed at making transformations. Your child will have the opportunity to learn about Andy's project and participate by answering questions.
University Studies for Tweens & Teens: |
UC Santa Cruz: The Development of Leadership in Community
Ages: 8-12 years
Study Time: 45 minutes
This study is interested in how children think about partisanship and use partisanship as a cue in their social decisions. Specifically, this study is interested in whether young children can talk about partisanship and use partisanship to infer whom they want to affiliate with and trust. The study will take place via Zoom, live with a researcher.
University of California, San Diego: What's Happening at Sunny School?
Ages: 10-year-old girls
Study Time:10 minutes
Compensation: $3 Amazon Gift Card
Your child will hear a short story about an alien named Ro who creates a club at Sunny School. Ro gets to decide who is allowed to be in the club and who is not. Your child will answer some questions about Ro, the rule Ro makes, and the other characters in the story.
Florida International University: Emotions and Attention to Faces
Ages: 10-14 years
Study Time: 4 sessions
Compensation: Up to $350
The study will take place via Zoom, live with a researcher.
University of Louisville: Children's Beliefs About Smart Speakers
Ages: 12 years
Study Time:30 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon Gift Card
Standford University: Guess What Happens Next
Ages: 13-15 years
Study Time: 15-20 minutes
Compensation: $5 Amazon Gift Card
Your child will watch a video of a person interacting with an AI voice assistant or another person and then guess what happens next. They will also listen to a story about snack time in a classroom and again guess what happens next.
