Poster #190 - Fostering children’s reasoning about disagreements through an inquiry-based curriculum

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social Cognition

Integrative Statement

We live in a world of disagreement. Recognizing that some disagreements can be resolved through objective fact while others are matters of interpretation or preference is an important metacognitive skill. Before children enter formal schooling, they begin to recognize that others’ beliefs can be false. Exposure to others’ perspectives – particularly in academic environments – might facilitate their ability to translate their understanding of belief into more metacognitive capacities to conceptualize differences in belief. Our investigation examines how different academic curricula can contribute to children’s abilities to resolve disagreements when beliefs are in conflict.
We examined this possibility by contrasting 120 first graders (2015 cohort: Mage = 86.92 months, SD = 4.23 months) who received a direct instruction curriculum with 112 first graders (2017 cohort: Mage = 87.28 months, SD = 4.24) tested in the same school system but who received an inquiry-based curriculum. Inquiry-based learning emphasizes the idea that children actively construct knowledge through exploration, question-asking, and experimentation (Edson, 2013).
All children were tested on their ability to evaluate disagreements between people (based on Heiphetz et al., 2013). Children saw three cards with different shapes on them (e.g., big blue triangle, small blue triangle, big yellow circle). The experimenter put up a barrier to occlude the cards and pretended to hide a penny under one of the cards. Next, she provided some information about the penny’s location and about the two characters’ beliefs about the penny’s location (e.g., “The penny is under a card with a blue triangle. Casey thinks it’s under the card with the big blue triangle. Jessie thinks it’s under the card with the small blue triangle.”). There were three types of trials, in which the two characters disagreed about a matter of fact (one character thinks the penny is in the location where the experimenter said it was, and the other character thinks the penny is elsewhere), a matter of interpretation (both characters could be right due to an ambiguity in the experimenter’s information), and a matter of preference (the penny is not hidden and the characters express their liking for one of the shapes). On each trial, participants were asked whether each character could be right and to justify their responses.
We analyzed correct responding using a General Linear Mixed Model with a Binary Logistic distribution, treating age, gender, trial type, and curriculum as fixed effects, and our order of questions as a random effect. There was a significant interaction between trial type and curriculum, F(2, 676) = 8.24, p < .001. Children’s evaluations of disagreements about interpretations or preferences did not differ depending on curriculum. However, children who received the inquiry-based curriculum were more likely to correctly resolve disagreements concerning facts (see Figure 1). When asked to justify their responses, children who received the inquiry-based curriculum were more likely to rely on an examination of the state of the world for both facts and interpretations. This suggests that an inquiry-based curriculum can foster an appreciation for how first-hand experiences creates knowledge.

Authors

• Amanda Haber, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• David Sobel, Brown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Villanova University
  Non-Presenting Author