Zoom to the Virtual Room: The Shift to Remote Early Childhood Observational Assessments

The COVID-19 pandemic has led prevention researchers to increasingly use remote observational procedures given social distancing directives associated with the pandemic. However, few studies have used remote observational procedures with children and their caregivers, with scant literature describing procedures with socioeconomically, racially, and ethnically diverse families. This manuscript describes processes to pivot to remote assessment of parent and child observations in the context of a longitudinal study examining the effects of a postpartum depression preventive intervention on responsive parenting and child self-regulation. We conducted remote assessments across three timepoints-42, 48, and 54 months-with 133 low-income and racially and ethnically diverse parent-child dyads. Details are provided on remote observation preparation and setup, as well as adaptation of observational assessments. Lessons learned are shared on the use of technology, scheduling considerations, parent's role as facilitator, maintaining child engagement, and cost considerations. We demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability between independent coders on all assessments, suggesting the quality of remote assessments was conducive for analysis. Surveys with families completing a remote assessment found that most felt it was easy to participate in remote assessments and their child had a positive experience. Most parents preferred virtual visits if given an option for future assessments. Much prevention research utilizes observational measures that are less subject to bias. Our study demonstrated that research teams can effectively and reliably pivot to remote assessment with racially and ethnically diverse, low socioeconomic families, thereby providing guidance to other prevention researchers considering similar remote assessments with diverse samples.