Child’s Play, Learning, and Development Lab

We are a very active lab doing studies on a number of different topics:

• the role media plays in children’s lives and how children can learn from media
• how kids learn language, especially babies
• the benefits of play for children, especially playful learning
• how kids learn to do spatial things, like putting puzzles together
• how babies learn about categories, e.g., animal, vehicle
• how do babies perceive the events around them

Required Skills

Undergraduates learn about research from the ground up! They engage in recruitment activities, including going to museums and day cares, they enter data, they interact with families, and they brainstorm with us about new studies and what our findings mean.  We have published with undergraduates and they often appear on our paper presentations for international and national conferences.

Recommended Skills

Applicants should be strong students and have at least a B+ cumulative index. We ask them to fill out an application and to have an interview. We prize students who love to learn and who are hard workers. They should enjoy young kids and being a part of a team. They should have good social skills in general as we work in close quarters. We love working with our undergraduates!