The CHAT-E tool is designed to be adaptable to a wide range of research questions. We partnered with programs and research teams across the country to test the CHAT-E tool with two specific studies—measuring young children’s college identity and evaluating young children’s perception of parental education, employment, and income.
Oakland Promise
Using the CHAT-E to Measure Young Children’s Perceptions about School and College
In 2016, the City of Oakland’s Mayor Office launched the Oakland Promise, a cradle to career initiative featuring a starter early college scholarship for all kindergarten students in Oakland public schools. Our team sought to obtain a direct measure of the program’s impact in the short term that also could be used for formative program improvement. We identified kindergarten children’s college-bound identity as the most proximal outcome for the program and developed the CHAT-E tool to assess the children’s self-perceptions at a large scale. Drawing on lessons from the Berkeley Puppet Interview about how to structure simple, opposing questions to assess younger children’s self-perceptions, we adapted the three scales from the college-going identity literature—identity salience, congruence with group, and interpretation of difficulty to study children’s college-bound identity (Elliott, W., et al. (2011).)(Oyserman, D., & Destin, M. (2010).). We also included items about how children perceived money and savings.
Sample Items
“I will go to college / I will not go to college”
“My family will help me go to college / My family will not help me go to college”
“My teacher thinks I am smart / My teacher does not think I am smart”
“Kids like me save money / Kids like me do not save money”
“My parent thinks I will go to college / My parent does not think I will go to college”
“I work hard in school / I do not work hard in school”
“I like working with my friends at school / I do not like working with my friends at school”
Two dog characters present opposing statements
NU2Gen
Using the CHAT-E to Measure Young Children’s Perceptions of School, Parental Expectation, and Parent’s Education
The CAP Tulsa CareerAdvance program offers education and training in the healthcare sector to low-income parents while their children are enrolled in Head Start or early elementary school. In an NU2Gen study of the scaled, community-based model of CareerAdvance, we employ an earlier, pilot version of the CHAT-E app to assess impacts of the program on child and parent human capital outcomes. The CHAT-E helps us to understand why observed impacts on parent and child human capital may emerge by measuring the self-perceptions of children ages 4-7. The CHAT-E interview also includes open-ended questions that allow children to elaborate on their ideas about family, school, and self.
Sample Items
“Sometimes I worry about my family not having enough money / I never worry about my family not having enough money“
“I think that how smart you are can change over time / I think that how smart you are never changes”
“My [parent] and I do homework together / My [parent] andI do not do homework together”
“My [parent] talks about school / My [parent] does not talk about school”
“I like to look at my [parent’s] school books / I do not like to look at my [parent’s] school books”
“My [parent] does not think I will do great things when I grow up / My [parent] thinks I will do great things when I grow up”
“I feel safe in my neighborhood / I do not feel safe in my neighborhood”