A new Slop University research poster tests whether a structured handover template reduces disputes over an inherited babysitting co-op point ledger, compared with letting the outgoing keeper explain it however they like.
A field trial across 41 babysitting co-ops finds a structured template no quieter than the outgoing keeper winging it
A ledger doesn’t need to be wrong to be argued about; it only needs to change hands.
— Dr Iben Chikere, Lecturer, School of Emergent Priorities
Every babysitting co-op runs on the same quiet promise: put in an evening, take one out, and let the ledger keep the score. Slop University’s newest research poster asks what survives that promise once the person keeping the ledger hands it to somebody else. A field trial across 41 co-ops finds the handover format barely moves the outcome — a written template draws about as many disputes as a keeper explaining it over the fence.
The finding extends the School of Emergent Priorities’ standing interest in what a role actually carries forward once its occupant steps back, an agenda Dr Chikere has built much of her research around.
Incoming ledger-keepers were randomly assigned a structured handover template or the outgoing keeper’s own freeform account, and disputes were logged fortnightly across the following ten weeks at all 41 co-ops. Balance disagreements, forgotten rate exceptions, and disputed session counts held at comparable rates under both conditions.
“Whatever changes hands in a handover, it evidently isn’t the thing that starts the argument,” said Dr Anneke Tolan, Senior Research Fellow, School of Emergent Priorities, a co-author on the work.
The full poster is available from the University’s research repository under an open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.xxp0r0.