1-199 - Parent-child interaction and learning about scientific thinking in informal settings

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The United States is falling behind on science, with American K-12 students lagging behind international counterparts on their understanding of STEM concepts (National Research Council, 2011). Such observations stand in direct contrast to the kinds of scientific investigations children seem to be naturally capable of in everyday interaction, particularly facilitated through parent-child interaction (e.g., Legare, Sobel & Callanan, 2017). Children’s museums offer fertile ground for investigating the ways in which children engage in everyday science, as exhibits are designed to promote exploration and explanations through interaction. The goal of this symposium is to examine how parent-child interaction affects children’s scientific thinking.

The presentations focus on ways in which parents promote scientific thinking through interaction in museum settings. Paper #1 focused on the types of questions parents and children ask of each other while they interact at an exhibit. The ways in which parents answer questions relates to children’s ability to evaluate information. Paper #2 encourages parents to take different pedagogical approaches, focused on generating mechanism knowledge or promoting inquiry. Inquiry resulted in more questions, which encouraged different learning. Paper #3 finds that both parental language and interaction style during free play affects how much children learn about an exhibit, but also their persistence in solving progressive challenges. Paper #4 examines how background knowledge and orientation to a novel exhibit affects the ways in which parents promote persistence during a tinkering activity. Taken together, the four papers reinforce the crucial role parental interaction plays in fostering children’s scientific reasoning.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chair

• David Sobel, Brown University

Individual Presentations

• Examining the link between parental explanations about science and child outcomes - Presenting Author: Candice Mills, The University of Texas at Dallas; Non-Presenting Author: Judith Danovitch, University of Louisville; Non-Presenting Author: Kaitlin Rose Sands, The University of Texas at Dallas; Non-Presenting Author: Allison Williams, University of Louisville

• The role of parental causal talk in children’s talk about science in museums - Presenting Author: Kathleen Helen Corriveau, Boston University; Non-Presenting Author: Ian L. Campbell, Boston University; Non-Presenting Author: Kathryn Leech, Harvard University Graduate School of Education

• The impact of parent-child interactions at a museum exhibit on children’s persistence and problem-solving - Presenting Author: David Sobel, Brown University; Non-Presenting Author: Susan M Letourneau, New York Hall of Science; Non-Presenting Author: Cristine H Legare, University of Texas at Austin; Non-Presenting Author: Maureen Callanan, University of California, Santa Cruz

• Persistence during Parent-Child Tinkering in a Children's Museum - Presenting Author: Catherine Haden, Loyola University; Non-Presenting Author: Maria Marcus, Roosevelt University; Non-Presenting Author: David H Uttal, Northwestern University