Study on parenting during COVID-19

About the study | FAQ

About the study.

This study is designed for caregivers and their 18-26 month old children.

Please read about our study below. If you have questions or want more information, feel free to email us at lcdlab@berkeley.edu with “COVID Study” in the subject line.

This study is designed to look at parents’ and children’s day-to-day routines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Each day, we would ask you to fill out a ~5-minute survey and to also use your phone or tablet to audio-record during your child’s bath time. In case you’re curious, the reason we have chosen bath time is because parents we polled said that this was their child’s most regular and consistent routine. For example, meal time can vary widely across families and days. Other routines such as story time and outdoor time are infrequent and not done by everyone.

If possible, we will ask that you complete these recordings and brief surveys each day for 30 days, for which you will be paid a total of $60. This should be the same adult filling out the survey and bathing your child each day. 

If your child doesn’t typically bathe every day, you would only complete the survey and recordings on the days that they bathe — ultimately, we just would like you to complete recordings for 30 consecutive bath times. Similarly, it’s ok if you forget one day. If you’re willing, you can just make up the missed day at the end.

If you are eligible for the remainder of the study, you will be assigned a study ID number, which we will send you along with the link to the daily short surveys. After you complete the above survey, we should send you this daily survey link within 1 business day. If we don’t, please email us.

Then, beginning the day that we send you this daily survey link (or the next day if you have already bathed your child before receiving the link), please start completing the daily recordings and short surveys. We ask that you do this for 30 consecutive days, but if you miss a day you can make up the missed survey and recording day at the end.  If your child doesn’t typically bathe every day, that’s ok too! In that case, we’d just ask you to record and complete the survey for 30 consecutive bath times. We will send you text reminders on each day before and after your child’s typical bath time, to remind you to complete the audio recordings and with a link to the day’s survey. You are, of course, free to choose to stop your participation at any point. Just let us know.

Other information about the study is included below. If you have any additional questions, feel free to email them to us at lcdlab@berkeley.edu, or let us know a good time to call you if you would prefer to talk over the phone.

Frequently Asked Questions.

How much will I be paid?
You will be paid a total of $60 for completing all 30 recordings and surveys. Specifically, you will be paid:
$1.50 per day for days 1-10
$2 per day for days 11-20
$2.50 per day for days 21-30

How will I be paid?
You will be paid weekly through PayPal. PayPal accounts are free to make if you do not already have them (please visit https://www.paypal.com/us/home). Standard transfers to banks are free.

What will I learn about my child or myself?
We are not assessing your child’s development in this study. However, we will be collecting daily measures of your activities, mood, and worries over the course of the study period. We would be happy to share this information with you after you complete the study, if this is something that you would be interested in. We may also be able to share overall results of our study in the future.

What happens if I cannot complete a recording?
You won’t be penalized for missing a recording day. If you are unable to complete a recording on one day, please skip the survey that day as well, and instead complete both the recording and survey on the next day that is possible for you. 

We ask that you then make up for missed days at the end, if possible. For example, if you didn’t record and complete the survey on day 2 and day 5, you can instead record and complete the survey on day 31 and day 32. You should plan to complete 30 recordings and surveys overall.

Who should complete the survey?
The survey should be completed by the same person each day. This should also be the person who bathes your child.

How should I record my child’s bath time?
Please use your smartphone or tablet or other recording device to complete recordings (instructions will be provided in the survey link above and can be viewed here). If you do not have a smartphone or tablet or another device to audio record with, unfortunately you would not be eligible.

How do I upload my recording?
Please use your device’s Wi-Fi to upload the recording to a secure link that we will provide each day as part of the survey. More detailed instructions for recording and uploading for your specific device are in the survey link provided in the eligibility survey, as well as here.

What will happen with my recording?
We are interested in how the COVID-19 pandemic affects family routines. We will analyze your recordings and surveys for possible changes in your routines over the course of the study period. Your recordings and survey responses will be stored on a secure server and will be kept confidential.

What if there are parts of my recording I don’t want to be stored?
When you upload your recordings, we will ask you whether there are any parts of the recording you wish to retract. If so, we will delete these parts of the recordings and not analyze them further.

How do you deal with privacy?
We take your confidentiality and privacy seriously. Both as individuals who would not like their own data leaked and as researchers who are bound by our review board to follow strict privacy and confidentiality measures. The essentials are that we remove identifiable information (e.g. name, email, phone number, etc.) from data immediately. Your research data is never directly tied to your identifiable information (name, email, phone number, etc.). We keep all our data on secure servers approved by UC Berkeley IT security and password protected / encrypted computers and hard drives. The UC IT team works diligently to ensure that our systems are as secure as humanly possible. There is always a risk but we and the University work as hard as we can to minimize that risk. If there were any breaches of your data we are also obligated to notify you immediately.

What if I don’t receive a text reminder on a certain day or there is an issue with the reminder text?
The daily survey links are the same each time. If you don’t get a reminder text on a certain day, let us know. However, the previous link(s) we sent you will still work to complete the survey for that day.