Behavioral Coder

Required Skills & Experience

Currently pursuing at least a Master's or PhD, or currently completing postdoctoral research, in a relevant area such as: Developmental Psychology Developmental Science Child Development Speech-Language Pathology Language Development Cognitive Development Early Childhood Development Experimental or Developmental Psychology Academic or research experience focused specifically on infants or very young children. Ability to recognize and differentiate early infant developmental behaviors. Strong understanding of early communication or language development. Experience reviewing research observations, video, or other behavioral data. Ability to consistently apply defined research criteria across repeated observations. Strong attention to detail and comfort discussing coding disagreements collaboratively.

Nice to Have Skills & Experience

Previous experience coding video of infants, babies, or parent-infant interactions for academic research. Experience with observational or behavioral coding methodologies. Familiarity with inter-rater reliability, coder agreement, or Cohen's kappa. Experience studying early speech behaviors such as cooing, babbling, vocalizations, gestures, or first words. Experience studying infant motor or cognitive development. Research involving caregiver responsiveness, parentese, infant-directed speech, joint attention, or serve-and-return interactions. Experience producing or contributing to published research, a dissertation, thesis, research paper, or similar academic work.

Job Description

About the Opportunity We are seeking two part-time Behavioral Research Video Coders to support an education program focused on helping parents promote learning and development in infants and toddlers. The team is developing research-backed curriculum designed to help parents support their children's early learning, development, and preschool readiness. As part of this work, families submit short videos demonstrating specific parent-child interactions. The coders will review these videos and apply an established research codebook to identify and label specific infant and parent behaviors. This is an excellent opportunity for graduate students, PhD candidates, postdoctoral researchers, or early-career researchers with hands-on experience studying infant development or parent-infant interactions. What You'll Do Learn and apply an established behavioral coding codebook. Review short videos of infants and their parents, typically 1 to 4 minutes each. Identify and code early infant communication behaviors, including cooing, vocalizations, babbling, and early words. Recognize relevant developmental and behavioral signals in infants. Code parent behaviors such as parentese, infant-directed speech, responsiveness, and serve-and-return interactions. Participate in an initial calibration period with another external coder and an internal subject matter expert. Compare coding decisions and discuss discrepancies during scheduled agreement meetings. Establish strong inter-rater reliability before moving into more independent video coding. Flag situations where observed behaviors may not be fully represented in the existing codebook. Enter coding data accurately into the team's selected research platform. Maintain consistency and accuracy across approximately 100 anticipated videos.