Poster #146 - Children’s Information-Seeking Questions During Mother-Child Playtime in South Korea’s Multicultural Families

• In Event: 2-002 - Special Poster Session 05 with Continental Breakfast Reception
  In Poster Session: PS 05 - International Section

Integrative Statement

Children’s social interaction with adults, especially their adult caregivers, plays an important role in fostering their understanding of the world (Vygotsky, 1978). Asking information-seeking questions is one of many strategies that young children employ to gather wanted information from others (see Ronfard, Zambrana, Hermansen & Kelemen, 2018 for review). While there is an emerging line of research examining young children’s questions in the United States (e.g., Chouinard, 2007; Kurkul & Corriveau, 2018), not much is known about similar question-asking behaviors in other parts of the world. The present study examined the types and frequency of children’s information-seeking questions during mother-child interaction during playtime in South Korea, to understand whether these behaviors are also observed in South Korean children and whether these question-asking behaviors vary with age.

Forty multicultural families, where at least one spouse (typically the mother) is of international background, were recruited for the study in South Korea. The Korean-learning children (M = 45 months, Range = 23 – 71 months) and their mothers were videotaped for 15 minutes during a semi-structured playtime in their homes, consisting of toy play and book reading in Korean. These interactions were transcribed verbatim, and children’s questions were coded to categorize their question-asking behaviors into information-seeking questions and non-information-seeking questions (Table 1; adapted from Chouinard, 2007; Kurkul & Corriveau, 2018).

The total number of information-seeking questions that children asked varied widely across participating children (M = 7.10, Range = 0 – 24). Among the information-seeking questions, children asked more factual information questions (M = 5.85, SD = 5.75) than causal information questions (M = 1.25, SD = 3.24; t = -4.24, p < 0.001). Among children’s non-information-seeking questions (M = 10.13, Range = 0 – 51), clarification questions were asked most frequently (M = 32.00, SD = 7.46), followed by permission questions (M = 19.00, SD = 4.73) and action-request questions (M = 4.00, SD = 0.70). As shown in Figure 1, of all the questions asked, older (46 – 71 months) children asked more information-seeking questions than younger (23 – 45 months) children (52% vs. 34%; t = -2.17, p = 0.037) and asked fewer non-information-seeking questions than younger children (48% vs. 66%; t = -2.17, p = 0.037).

This study is the first to examine the development of the information-seeking question behaviors of young children from multicultural families in South Korea. As our findings extend previous findings of information-seeking behaviors of children from Western backgrounds, we will discuss our findings in terms of the generalizability of young children’s information-seeking behaviors. Further, as prior studies have indicated that young children’s questions foster their cognitive development (Chouinard, 2007), the results of our study likewise suggest the potential benefits of encouraging mothers of 3- and 4-year-olds to provide opportunities for their children to ask information-seeking questions. This could be particularly helpful for these families, as these children from multicultural families tend to be behind their peers in early language development and later academic achievement. We plan to further examine mothers’ responses to children’s information-seeking questions.

Authors

• So Yeon Shin, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Presenting Author

• Hye Jeong Jeong, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith Rowe, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hyewon Park, University of Ulsan
  Non-Presenting Author