Information about the study
SWITCH is a three-year international research project launched in April 2025. It investigates how social wellbeing supports children’s mental health, development, and learning during the critical transitions into and during formal education.
SWITCH brings together experts from Germany, Austria, Sweden, and the UK. In the UK, research will be led by the SoNeAt Lab at the Department of Psychology, University of Essex (Colchester) under the direction of Dr Pascal Vrtička. The project focuses on children during their Reception year and follows them through to the end of Year 1.
The project has three core objectives:
- To gather large-scale, cross-national data on children’s wellbeing and development.
- To conduct in-depth studies with a smaller group of children, including lab-based assessments of relationships and social skills.
- To generate long-term insights and policy recommendations that support successful transitions to and within school.
Eligibility/criteria for taking part
Participants must meet the following criteria:
- Children must be starting Reception in September 2025 (aged 4–5).
- Families must live in Eastern England.
- Both the participating parent and child must live at the same address.
- Both the participating parent and child must speak fluent English.
- The participating parent must be the child’s biological parent.
- Parent(s)/guardian(s) must be able to give informed consent.
- Families must be willing to take part in follow-up assessments during Year 1.
What the participants have to do?
Large-scale sample (approx. 1,000 families in the UK):
- Parents and teachers will complete online questionnaires on the child’s mental health, social wellbeing, relationships, and background.
- The parent questionnaire takes approximately 40 minutes, and the teacher questionnaire around 10–15 minutes.
- These questionnaires will be completed twice: once at the start of Reception and again at the end of Year 1.
In-depth subsample (approx. 80 children in the UK):
- Attend three lab-based sessions:
- One during Reception (approx. 2.5 hours) involving the participating parent and child.
- Two during Year 1:
- The first (approx. 2.5 hours) involving the participating parent, child, and a peer with their parent.
- The final session (approx. 1 hour) involving the participating parent and child.
- Children will complete structured activities to assess cognitive, social, and early academic skills.
- Participating parents and peers will take part in joint tasks to explore bio-behavioural and neural synchrony.
- Sessions will include functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) – a safe, non-invasive brain imaging method using light to monitor brain activity.
All sessions are designed to be child-friendly, engaging, and developmentally appropriate.
How do participants take part and who should they contact?
To express interest, parents can complete the following survey: https://bit.ly/3ZF81yT
For more information, or for schools wishing to take part, please email: switch@essex.ac.uk
Funding
SWITCH is jointly funded by CHANSE (Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe) and NORFACE (New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Cooperation in Europe), with a total funding amount of €1.5 million over three years.
Ethical approval
Approved by the University of Essex Research and Enterprise Office - Ethics application ETH2425-0370
Data collection period
The data collection period for this study is from April 2025 to March 2028.