The Impact of Curiosity-Promoting Instructions on Children’s Question Asking

• In Event: 3-220 - The Darndest Questions: The Role of Questioning in Children’s Learning

Integrative Statement

Curiosity is important for and supports learning (Ainley, Hidi, & Berndorf, 2002), and question asking is acknowledged as important by research in cognitive development and science education (e.g., Chouinard, 2007; NRC, 2012), yet children do not associate curiosity with school (Post & Walma van der Molen, 2018). Students’ questions, often serving as expressions of their curiosity (Luce & Hsi, 2015), are quite infrequent in classroom settings (Tizard & Hughes, 1984; Susskind, 1977). We suggest that promoting children’s curiosity might lead to higher levels of question asking, and test the impact of a framework of curiosity-promotion (Jirout, Vitiello, & Zumbrunn, 2018) on children’s question asking.

The framework discussed includes two categories of curiosity-promoting language with eight sub-categories (see Table 1). We will briefly review methods of promoting curiosity based on prior literature. For example, teachers can develop comfort with uncertainty, promoting higher confidence in learning ability and less fear of being wrong (Martin, 2011) and helping children to become more aware of uncertainty, or gaps in their knowledge (i.e., something they do not know) (Jirout & Klahr, 2012; Engel, 2011; Henderson & Moore, 1980). Teachers can also model inquisitive behavior during classroom instruction, increasing similar behaviors in children (Zimmerman & Pike, 1972), and give them opportunities generate their own questions, to think of different ways of thinking about problems, and to participate and share with others (Duschl & Osborne, 2002; Chi & Wylie, 2014; Dewey, 1910; Ciardiello, 1998; Grolnick & Ryan, 1987).

In a controlled test of the curiosity-promotion framework, we randomly assigned children to receive either curiosity-promoting or control language on a mystery animal task. Curiosity is likely to be highly sensitive to specific language used (Gordon, Braezeal, & Engel, 2015), so the manipulation included slight differences in language, with the task otherwise identical for both groups (see Table 1 for example differences in conditions, aligned with the framework). In the task, animals were hidden behind three curtains, with the child as a “zoo detectives” who could gather information about the animals by asking questions. Language in both conditions encouraged the use of questioning to gather information, and were similar in language quality and length. In the curiosity-promoting language, however, there were more explicit links to the theorized promotion categories.

In a preliminary sample of 46 children (Mage = 7.8 years; 44% female), we tested the difference in mean questions asked across trials between the curiosity-promoting and control conditions. Descriptive results showed that all children asked a high number of questions (M = 6.7 questions), with a developmental increase with age (r = .292, p = .049). Controlling for age, we observed significantly higher question-asking for boys in the experimental group than boys in the control group, while girls did not differ by condition (see Figure 1; interaction p = .003, ηp²= .206). Analyses with the complete sample, further analyses of question type, and connections to school-based studies of the curiosity-promoting language will be discussed.

Author

• Jamie Jirout, University of Virginia
  Presenting Author