Building Inventions, Building Interest: How Family Interactions Support Youths' Interest Development in an Engineering Workshop

• In Event: Parents and Families as Socializers of Student Cognition and Motivation

Abstract

Youths’ interest in informal education settings is influenced by parental social practices; however this has not been fully explored in all informal contexts (e.g., facilitated STEM workshops). Using a qualitative case study and video-based analysis techniques, we investigate how family interactions influence youth interest during an hour-long informal engineering workshop. Preliminary findings indicate that parents help facilitate the development of triggered and maintained situational interest by bringing in new information for the child, using familiar social practices, conversation, and gesture to connect their interests to the workshop, and allowing the child’s interests to guide the family’s interactions with the facilitation prompts of the workshop. This analysis contributes to the understanding of the parent’s role in supporting youth’s science interests.

Authors

• Lillyanna Faimon, Pennsylvania State University

• Heather Toomey Zimmerman, Pennsylvania State University