How to Participate in Our Research: If you and your child would like to participate in our research, we encourage you to register with our laboratory. You can do this via:
Phone Landline: (905-569-4710) or Cell: (647-410-4844)
or
Please note that your registration does not indicate your obligation to participate. Once your child reaches an age we are examining in one of our studies, we will contact you with information about the specific study. You can then decide if you would like to participate in the particular study.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have about our research; we are always happy to hear from families in our community.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Where is your laboratory located?
Our lab is located on the University of Toronto Mississauga Campus at 3359 Mississauga Road. We are on the 4th Floor of the Deerfield Hall building. When we schedule your visit, we will provide you with a map of our campus and information regarding where to park. From that point, one of our researchers will meet you at the parking lot and walk you over to our lab.
What happens during a visit?
When you and your child arrive at our lab, we will provide you with detailed information about the study you will be participating in and answer any questions you may have. You will then be asked to read and sign our consent form, which indicates that you have been informed about the activities involved in the study and that you and your child agree to participate. Additionally, regardless of your child's age, we will ensure that he/she understands what will happen during the visit and verbally agrees to participate.
While we have many different studies, they typically involve interviewing your child about their thoughts and feelings relating to everyday social situations. Additionally, we often measure children’s physiological responding, such as their heart rate, or ask them to complete a computer activity. Once more, we will provide you with all study details when we contact you.
Once the study is completed, we will debrief you with a detailed description of the purpose of our study, including our predictions regarding what patterns we expect to find in our data. Then, as a token of our gratitude for your contribution to child development research, your child will receive a book and a certificate of completion at the end of the study.
How long does it take to participate in a study?
On average, it takes between 1 and 1.5 hours to participate in one of our studies.
What happens if I change my mind about participating?
At any point leading up to, during, or after the study, you and your child are free to withdraw from participation. If we have already collected any data from you, we will gladly erase it from our records.
What happens to the data collected?
We store our data in an electronic file, which includes no personally identifiable information, such as names. The information we collect is only used for the purposes described to you in the consent form. The results from our studies are typically first presented at a professional scientific conference and then reported in a scientific journal. At no point will we share any information identifying individual children or parents. We will only report general trends across children, such as differences between age groups, and we will not report any individual child’s results.
As our studies come to an end, we will provide a description of our findings to families through our newsletter, including information on any journal publications emerging from our studies.
Will my data be kept confidential?
Any information we receive from families, through registration or participation in any of our studies, is kept secure and is never shared with anyone outside of our laboratory. All participants in our studies are identified using a number rather than by name in all research records. Records and data are kept confidential and secure on specific computers in our research lab.
Directions to Deerfield Hall at the University of Toronto Mississauga
The Laboratory for Social-Emotional Development and Intervention (SEDI Lab) is located on the 4th floor of Deerfield Hall at the University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM). Our address is:
3359 Mississauga Road North
Department of Psychology
Deerfield Hall, Fourth Floor, Room 4055
Mississauga, Ontario
L5L 1C6
Please click on the following link for directions to the UTM campus:
http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/8709.0.html
Phone: Landline: +1 (905) 569-4710
Cell: +1 (647) 410-4844
Email: malti.admin@utoronto.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maltilab
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sedilab
If you are coming from the east end: drive west on Eglinton, and then south on Mississauga Road. Arrive at the north entrance of the UTM campus on the left side and enter the campus (the north entrance is at the intersection of Mississauga Road North and Outer Circle Road/Harkiss Road at the first set of traffic lights). Once you enter the north entrance you must follow Outer Circle Road past Deerfield Hall and the North Building on your right. Keep driving until you see Parking Lot 1 (green P1 sign) right beside the North Building.
If you are coming from the west end: drive west on Eglinton, and then south on Mississauga Road. Arrive at the north entrance of the UTM campus on the left side and enter the campus (the north entrance is at the intersection of Mississauga Road North and Outer Circle Road/Harkiss Road at the first set of traffic lights). Once you enter the north entrance you must follow Outer Circle Road past Deerfield Hall and the North Building on your right. Keep driving until you see Parking Lot 1 (green P1 sign) right beside the North Building.
Parking pass: A member of our lab will be there to meet you upon your arrival with a parking pass that you can put on the front dashboard of your vehicle, which you return to us once you have completed the study. Please call approximately 5 minutes prior to your arrival at the university to allow time for the lab member to meet you at the parking space. The lab member can be contacted at 905-569-4710 (or cell: 647-410-4844).
If you are arriving by bus: The bus will stop at the University of Toronto Mississauga lay-by bus terminal. Please call our lab approximately 5 minutes prior to your arrival at the bus terminal. Once you have arrived, a lab member will meet you when you get off the bus and accompany you to the laboratory.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact Professor Tina Malti at: malti.lab@utoronto.ca