School of Psychology, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, Malaysia.
Department of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, University of Göttingen, Waldweg 26, D-37073, Göttingen, Germany.
Behav Res Methods. 2024 Aug;56(5):4530-4552. doi: 10.3758/s13428-023-02200-7. Epub 2023 Aug 24.
The COVID-19 pandemic massively changed the context and feasibility of developmental research. This new reality, as well as considerations about sample diversity and naturalistic settings for developmental research, highlights the need for solutions for online studies. In this article, we present e-Babylab, an open-source browser-based tool for unmoderated online studies targeted for young children and babies. e-Babylab offers an intuitive graphical user interface for study creation and management of studies, users, participant data, and stimulus material, with no programming skills required. Various kinds of audiovisual media can be presented as stimuli, and possible measures include webcam recordings, audio recordings, key presses, mouse-click/touch coordinates, and reaction times. An additional feature of e-Babylab is the possibility to administer short adaptive versions of MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (Chai et al. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, 3488-3500, 2020). Information pages, consent forms, and participant forms are customizable. e-Babylab has been used with a variety of measures and paradigms in over 12 studies with children aged 12 months to 8 years (n = 1516). We briefly summarize some results of these studies to demonstrate that data quality, participant engagement, and overall results are comparable between laboratory and online settings. Finally, we discuss helpful tips for using e-Babylab and present plans for upgrades.
COVID-19 大流行极大地改变了发展研究的背景和可行性。这种新的现实，以及对发展研究样本多样性和自然环境的考虑，突出了对在线研究解决方案的需求。在本文中，我们介绍了 e-Babylab，这是一种用于针对幼儿和婴儿的非监管在线研究的开源基于浏览器的工具。e-Babylab 为研究创建和管理研究、用户、参与者数据和刺激材料提供了直观的图形用户界面，无需编程技能。各种视听媒体都可以作为刺激呈现，可能的措施包括网络摄像头录制、音频录制、按键、鼠标点击/触摸坐标和反应时间。e-Babylab 的一个附加功能是可以管理 MacArthur-Bates 交际发展量表（Chai 等人，《言语、语言和听力研究杂志》，63, 3488-3500, 2020）的简短自适应版本。信息页面、同意书和参与者表格都是可定制的。e-Babylab 已在 12 项针对 12 个月至 8 岁儿童的研究中使用了各种措施和范式（n=1516）。我们简要总结了这些研究的一些结果，以证明实验室和在线环境之间的数据质量、参与者参与度和整体结果是可比的。最后，我们讨论了使用 e-Babylab 的有用提示，并介绍了升级计划。
