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Young Scientist Day for children aged 4-11 (Reception to Year 6) 2019

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Venue: Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE
Price: free

Young Scientist Day for children aged 4-11 (Reception to Year 6) 2019

We are excited to announce our fourth Young Scientists Days for children aged 4-11 (Reception to Year 6) on Thursday 30th May, run by the Developing Minds Lab within the Department of Psychology at Kingston University London.

Parents are invited to bring their children along to learn about psychology and gain first-hand experience of psychological research. A variety of research activities are available ranging from how we learn about and perceive emotions to how we solve puzzles.

Information Sheet

We at the Department of Psychology at Kingston University would like to invite you and your child to join us for half a day of exciting research. Please come and visit us for a chance to see what we as developmental psychologists do to try to understand how children develop.

Should you accept this invitation, your child will be asked to participate in a number of school based tasks (i.e. pen and paper and computer games) investigating the way in which children process words, shapes, numbers and emotions. Each task will take 10 - 20 minutes and your child will be able to take part in as many or as little activities as they like. They will be given the opportunity to interact with peers and experience exciting methods such as eye tracking. Your child will be in no danger, as our tasks do not include any form of chemicals, medical imaging or harmful assessments.

Participation is voluntary, and you will have the right to withdraw at any given time with no questions asked. All data collected will be kept confidential and anonymised for the purposes of our research. Unfortunately we will not be able to give you specific information about how your child has performed on the tasks. We will however send you a newsletter outlining our findings and the important work your child has done by becoming a young scientist for the day.

There are two sessions available for your child to attend - please pick your preferred one (please note, you can only pick one) by clicking 'REGISTER' above and selecting the relevant drop down.

Summary

What is it? 

An exciting opportunity for children to take part in age-appropriate psychology games/research, learn about psychology, and discover what psychologists do.

What would I do on the day?

Parents can either stay in our parents room (on the same floor) and leave children to play games and do research with our team or parents can go to the canteen on campus (but please remember parents need to stay in the building).

When is it?

During half term - so a great, free opportunity for your budding little scientists during their holiday! Each session is three hours long: you and your child(ren) can either come to the morning session (9.00am - 12.00pm) or the afternoon session (1.00pm - 4.00pm).

When you book, please ensure you carefully read the Information Sheet before signing your child up. Thank you.

Examples of studies

How do children solve puzzles?
In this study we show children a pattern on a computer screen that has one piece missing and children are asked to find the missing piece out of six options. Using the Tobii eye tracker, which a non-invasive camera that records children's eye movements, we can examine where children are looking whilst they do this task which provides further insight into how children solve simple and complex puzzles. A better understanding of how children solve puzzles, especially those who perform better compared to those who do not, will allow us to develop better educational intervention programmes.

How do children recognise emotions?
This study aims to investigate the recognition of briefly presented facial expressions that vary in intensity. It investigates whether higher intensity displays of emotion are easier for children to identify. Children take part in a computer task where they are presented with short video-clips of facial expressions and children are asked to match them with emotion labels. This can help us develop better informed interventions related to social interactions.

If you have children who would like to participate aged between 12-16 (Year 7 to Year 11), please click here.

Booking is essential to attend this event.

For further information about this event:

Contact: Dr Elisa Back
Email: e.back@kingston.ac.uk

Directions

Directions to Penrhyn Road campus, Penrhyn Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE:

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