A coworker and I were bored one day at the preschool we worked at and decided to test out a theory about kids and their manners. We worked in a preschool that also did after care. The age ranges of the kids in the soon to be experiment were from three years of age to twelve. We started testing the kids and their manners for a workday; I figured the younger kids had better manners then the older kids and my coworker thought the opposite. We tested the kids without their knowledge.
It was simple things we were looking for holding the door open for someone, picking something up if someone dropped it, saying please and thank you, sharing and so on. Thinking back on it I would say there was experimental bias being that the teachers were there to correct the mistakes we were looking for. Since it was a theory being tested between coworkers I am sure there was a bit of competition as to who wins as well. If given an opportunity to test this theory again I would most likely try testing the theory for a few more days, spend a day with each group.
It would be hard to test on a theory like this one with consent, I believe, because the older kids would have been on their best behavior. Ethically we should have informed the parents that the kids were being tested on their behavior and gotten permission since they were all under age. Since it was two bored coworkers coming up with something to do we really did not think that far into it at the time. In the end the five year olds had the best manners in comparison to the younger and older groups
