The Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire

The Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ)

Mazachowsky, T. R., & Mahy, C. E. V. (2020). Construction of the children’s future thinking questionnaire: A reliable and valid parent-report measure of children’s future-oriented cognition. Developmental Psychology, 56, 756-772. [PDF]

Our lab has developed a reliable and valid parent-questionnaire to measure 3- to 7-year-olds' future oriented cognition in the domains of planning, prospective memory, delay of gratification, saving, and episodic foresight. It is called the Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire (Mazachowsky & Mahy, 2020).

Infographic created by Lydia Lavis.

The Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire is 44-items and shows strong psychometric properties including strong internal consistency of the five subscales and full scale, excellent test-retest reliability, and good validity (parent's responses are correlated with children's behavioural performance on lab tasks). The questionnaire is meant to tap into children's future-oriented behaviour broadly and is an excellent addition to traditional laboratory behavioural measures of children's performance. You can read more about the reliability and validity of the CFTQ in our paper in Developmental Psychology. The paper contains 4 studies that describe the development, refinement, and testing of the psychometric properties of the CFTQ.

It takes parents 10 to 15 minutes to complete and can be administered in person or online.

The final questionnaire is freely available to researchers on this webpage. Please fill out the contact form at the bottom of the page if you are interested in using the questionnaire and it will be sent to you along with a scoring guide.

The CFTQ could be adapted for use with children older than 3- to 7-years-old. It was designed so that basic items could stay the same, but age-appropriate examples could be substituted for the current examples appropriate for young children.

The video below provides some important information and FAQ about the CFTQ.

Here is an article about the Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire published in The Brock News:

Published studies that have used the Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire

Marks, J., Schneider, S., & Voigt, B. (2024). Interindividual differences in episodic foresight: The role of personality factors and family context in preschool-aged and primary-school-aged children. Learning and Individual Differences, 111, 102444.

Marks, J., Schneider, S., & Voigt, B. (2023). Future-Oriented Cognition: Links to Mental Health Problems and Mental Well-being in Preschool-aged and Primary-school-aged Children. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1211986.

Fuke, T. S.S., Kamber, E., Alunni, M., & Mahy, C. E. V. (2023). The emergence of procrastination in early childhood: Relations with executive control and future-oriented cognition. Developmental Psychology, 59, 579-593.

Kamber, E., Mazachowsky, T. R. & Mahy, C. E. V. (2022). The emergence of future-oriented cognition in toddlerhood: The contribution of cognitive and language abilities. Journal of Cognition and Development.

Sadeghi, S., Ayoubi, S., & Brand, S. (2022). Parenting Styles Predict Future-Oriented Cognition in Children: A Cross-Sectional Study. Children, 9(10), 1589.

Fuke, T. S., & Mahy, C. E. V. (2022). Executive and retrospective memory processes in preschoolers’ prospective memory development. Cognitive Development, 62, 101172.

Sadeghi, S., Ayoubi, S., & Sarlak, S. (2022). Psychometric Properties of the Children’s Future Thinking Questionnaire in Iranian Children. Quarterly Journal of Applied Psychology, 16(1), 46-31.

Supplemental Files
(Mazachowsky & Mahy, 2020)
These files are being made available so that researchers can see how behavioural tasks were administered in Study 2 and 3 of our paper on the development of the Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire in Developmental Psychology.
Behavioural Task Script from Study 2
Behavioural Task Script from Study 3

Please fill out the form if you are interested in receiving the Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ). We would appreciate you informing us of any publications that involve the use of the CFTQ.

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Disclaimer – Terms and Conditions of Use
Non-Commercial Use Only
Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire, © 2020 , Brock University (the “Survey”). The Survey remains the property of Brock University (“the University”). The Survey is distributed “AS IS” under this Licence solely for non-commercial use by a third party accepting these terms (the “Licensee”). No part of the Survey may be reproduced, modified, transmitted or transferred in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the express permission of the University, with the following exception. The permission of the University is not required if the said reproduction, modification, transmission or transference is done without: (1) any financial return; (2) the conditions of this Licence are imposed upon the receiver of the product; and (3) all original and amended information is included in any transferred product.

Licensee is not permitted under this Licence to use the Survey commercially whatsoever without prior written permission from the University. Use of the Survey for which any financial return is received shall be defined as commercial use, and includes, but is not limited to, (1) integration of all or part of the Survey into a product for sale or license by or on behalf of Licensee to third parties or (2) use of the Survey or any derivative of it for research with the final aim of developing products for sale or license to a third party or (3) use of the Survey to provide any service to an external organization for which payment is received.

If Licensee is interested in using the Survey for any commercial purpose, please contact The Office of Research Services, Brock University, to negotiate a licence. Contact details are: Bradley McLean, Associate Director ([email protected]) quoting “Licence Opportunity - Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire” in the subject line.
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The content of the Survey is based on scientific research. The information provided herein should not be substituted for medical or other examination, professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. A qualified professional with the appropriate expertise (such as a doctor, healthcare professional or other qualified professional with expertise in a particular field) is the most appropriate person to provide guidance and advice on specific issues. Any individual that is currently ill, has symptoms or has any other concerns related to physical or mental health, wellbeing or any other concern regarding subject matter that may be covered by this Survey, should seek the help of a qualified professional. This Survey is provided as a public service only. Any use of this Survey is at the user’s own risk.

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This project was funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant.

The Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ)Mazachowsky, T. R., & Mahy, C. E. V. (2020). Construction of the children’s future thinking questionnaire: A reliable and valid parent-report measure of children’s future-oriented cognition. Developmental Psychology, 56, 756-772. [PDF]

Please fill out the form if you are interested in receiving the Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ). We would appreciate you informing us of any publications that involve the use of the CFTQ.

The Children's Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ)

Mazachowsky, T. R., & Mahy, C. E. V. (2020). Construction of the children’s future thinking questionnaire: A reliable and valid parent-report measure of children’s future-oriented cognition. Developmental Psychology, 56, 756-772. [PDF]