Persistence during Parent-Child Tinkering in a Children's Museum

• In Event: 1-199 - Parent-child interaction and learning about scientific thinking in informal settings

Integrative Statement

Tinkering is a form of open-ended problem solving that is rapidly being integrated into exhibits and programs in informal educational settings such as museums (Honey & Kanter, 2013), and formal curricula and projects in schools (Martinez & Stager, 2013). The broad-based enthusiasm for tinkering exists in part because it can provide a powerful way to engage young people in science and engineering practices. Tinkering is also nearly an ideal context to examine learning through direct experiences with objects (Piaget, 1970) and parent-child conversational interactions (Vygotsky, 1978). Families often spend a considerable amount of time working with objects and having conversations during tinkering as they engage in engineering design practices that include developing an idea, and persisting through a process of testing and redesigning their creations to find solutions to problems. In this presentation, we focus especially on how persistence in problem solving varies by (a) differences in the information families received before tinkering, (b) who initiated the testing of the tinkering creations, and (c) families' background knowledge.

We observed a total of 151, 6- to 8-year-olds (M = 7.26 years) and their families in a tinkering exhibit in a children's museum. Whereas all families were presented with the design challenge to make something that rolls, only those who participated in the second iteration of this program (n = 87) also received an orientation from museum staff about wheels and axles that involved testing whether model vehicles rolled. We hypothesized that families who also received the orientation prior to entering the exhibit (MIR2 group) would engage in more testing than those families who received only the design challenge (MIR1). We also hypothesized that families would persist more when the children initiated the testing. Finally, we gathered background information from all families, including whether parents' jobs were science-related. We hypothesized that we would see the most persistence when parents had a science-related job.

Most families tested their creation at least once (88% and 98% in MIR1 and MIR2, respectively). Families who received the orientation conducted more tests (MIR2: M = 10.75, SD = 8.86) compared to those who did not receive the orientation (MIR1: M = 5.29, SD = 5.38), F = 15.45, p < .001. The number of tests that children verbally initiated was significantly related to children’s persistence on the task (rs = .47 and .52, for MIR1 and MIR2, respectively, ps < .001). After controlling for the number of tests performed, children whose parents reported having a science-related job (M = 4.66, SD = 3.89) persisted more on building their creation, compared to those whose parents did not report having a science-related job (M = 2.22, SD = 2.80), F = 13.06, p < .001.
Discussion of these and other findings will center on conditions that promote persistence in problem-solving in informal educational settings. Contributions of this work to theory, research, and informal educational practice will be discussed.

Authors

• Catherine Haden, Loyola University
  Presenting Author

• Maria Marcus, Roosevelt University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David H Uttal, Northwestern University
  Non-Presenting Author