The day has finally come! After preparing all of the materials, testing the experiment, recruiting schools, visiting the participating schools, and creating a schedule, I have officially started testing my first few participants!! On Thursday, I was up before the sun to get ready and hop on a train to travel about two hours away from Nijmegen to an elementary school where I was to run participants throughout the school day. Despite one cancelled train (which I’m getting pretty used to), everything went smoothly! All of the teachers and staff at the school have been so welcoming and helpful, greeting me from the time that I arrive and even asking if I would like a coffee or tea (which I’ve found is pretty typical in Europe and I’m certainly not complaining)! All of the students, similarly, have been so wonderful and eager to participate in the experiment! One thing I have noticed though, is that testing in a natural school setting is much different than testing in a sound-controlled lab room. Despite having a quiet office to test in, sometimes you just can’t help the sound of running water from the nearby bathroom or the children eating lunch just outside the room. Although I don’t think it has interfered too much with my recordings, it is definitely something I will have to keep in mind moving forward.
Speaking of moving forward, I have a full week of testing this coming week! Although I know I am going to be exhausted after all of the traveling and testing that I will do, I am so incredibly excited to return to the schools and to hopefully end the week with a pretty sufficient amount of data! Stay tuned for the next post..after five full days of testing elementary school children I’m sure I will have something worth sharing! 🙂
Oh, and of course I had to spend the beautiful Memorial Day Weekend (despite not being a Dutch holiday) the only way that I know how… at the ~river~ beach!!!