Why a study about Santa For Parents?

Last year, we conducted a study with children and adults looking at memories of Santa. Find out more about the previous study.

This ongoing project focuses on the activities and conversations that children engage in regarding Santa Claus. We are trying to understand how the language children and families use to discuss Santa Claus changes over development, as well as what kinds of experiences lead to the most questions.

Sign-ups are now closed, but stay tuned here for additional updates!

Who gets to participate? Parents with at least one child between the ages of 3 and 10 as of December 25 who still believes that Santa Claus is a real being and not a fictional one. They also need to have access to a phone with a US area code that can receive texts and have regular access to the internet during the month of December in order to respond to the surveys.

What happens in this project? This project has three parts:

1. Initial Survey. You will complete an initial survey on the computer regarding your typical activities around Christmastime and provide some demographic information. This session should last approximately 10 minutes. This survey must be completed no later than 11:59 PM on Tuesday, December 1st to move on to qualify for the next phase of the study.
2. December Diaries. On Thursday and Sunday evenings during the month of December, you will receive a text message that will send you to a brief survey that you can complete on your phone. The survey will ask you to a) check off from a list the Santa-related activities you had engaged in since the previous survey and b) describe the conversations about Santa you and your child shared since the previous survey. Each survey should take between 1 and 10 minutes, depending on how much you have to report for that time period.
3. Final Survey. In early January, you will complete a final survey on your computer about your experiences with Santa Claus this season along with a few additional background surveys. This session should last approximately 10-15 minutes.

How many parents/guardians will participate? Up to 130 parents/guardians will participate.

What do I get for participation? Parents will be compensated for participation in two ways:

1. Keepsake Downloadable Journal. In the final survey, you will be asked if you would be interested in receiving a downloadable journal (in the form of a Word document) of the conversations about Santa Claus that you had shared with us in December. If you are interested in this, the researchers will prepare a downloadable journal of your conversations with your child as a keepsake. This journal will be emailed to you in January or February. If you’d like, we can add a picture of Santa Claus that your child creates on the cover.
2. Gift Card. You will receive gift cards based on how many surveys you complete. There are ten surveys total: the Initial Survey, the 8 December Diaries, and the Final Survey. You will earn $2 per survey for completing the Initial Survey and each of the 8 December Diaries, and $5 for completing the Final Survey, for a maximum of $23. In addition, if you complete 6 out of the 8 December Diaries and both the Initial and the Final Survey, you will be entered in a lottery for a $50 amazon electronic gift card.

But we don’t live in Dallas – can we still participate? Absolutely! Parents can participate from anywhere in the United States as long as they have a child who is in the right age range who still believes in Santa and have a phone to receive the text message diary links.

How do I sign up? Sign-ups for this year are now closed. Parents had to complete a web form to see if they qualified, and then a consent form and initial survey to get started.

If you have additional questions, please contact us at thinklab@utdallas.edu.

We look forward to hearing from you!