Advancing developmental science via unmoderated remote research with children

This article introduces an accessible approach to implementing unmoderated remote research in developmental science—research in which children and families participate in studies remotely and on their own, without directly interacting with researchers. Unmoderated remote research has the potential to strengthen developmental science by: (1) facilitating the implementation of studies that are easily replicable, (2) allowing for new approaches to longitudinal studies and studies of parent-child interaction, and (3) including families from more diverse backgrounds and children growing up in more diverse environments in research. We describe an approach we have used to design and implement unmoderated remote research that is accessible to researchers with limited programming expertise, and describe resources available on a new website to help researchers get started with this approach, http://discoveriesonline.org. We discuss the potential of this method for developmental science and highlight some challenges still to be overcome to harness the power of unmoderated remote research for advancing the field.