Coloring Book: Testing Language Comprehension

Using Coloring Book for language research

If you want to use Coloring Book for your own research, we (the authors) can help you think about all the possibilities for you; we can help you think about how the Coloring Book method can be used in your project, and even design a tailor-made test for you.

The Coloring Book method has now been used in a number of studies (vocabulary, syntax, morphology, semantics and discourse pragmatics) and with a large variety of populations (first and second language learners, atypical language learners, adults and children). This new method has proven to be particularly successful with young children. The playful format and the familiar activity of coloring has a great appeal on children and it enables experimenters to collect objective, ecologically valid and – most importantly – novel data on language comprehension.

The digital Coloring Book method makes it possible
to collect your data almost effortlessly

This method does not only allow to collect data about which words the participant has in their receptive vocabulary; it also records the time it takes for the participant to make a choice, and how many times he/she changes their decision.

This method offers many possibilities for future research. A wide variety of research questions can be tested, among a wide variety of populations. We would be glad to help you think about how the Coloring Book can be of use for your specific question(s).

The data are automatically anonimized and uploaded to the server, which is maintained under strict GDPR regulations at Utrecht University.