Learning settings affect how children believe learning happens

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

What children understand about learning develops with age. As children get older, they are able to reflect on their learning – generating specific examples of times they learned something; by the age of 7 children begin to describe learning as process that involves a change in knowledge through a source (teacher) and/or a strategy (e.g., practicing, Bemis et al., 2011; Sobel & Letourneau, 2015).

Participants in these studies were tested in both the lab and at a children’s museum and data was analyzed together. Because children’s museums are designed to promote children’s learning through play (ACM, 2020), we considered whether testing children after their play on the museum floor or in an environment not specifically designed for playful learning (i.e., the lab or home) affected the way they conceptualized learning. Does the free-play that children engage in at a children’s museum prompt them to talk differently about learning?

We interviewed 6-9-year-olds at a children’s museum after they engaged in up to ten minutes free play (N=60, Mage = 94.25 months, 35 girls, 25 boys). We then recruited 60 different children to participate in the same interview in the Lab or remotely by Zoom (Mage = 95.59 , 27 girls, 33 boys, 15 tested on zoom due to COVID-19). The interview asked children to define learning and describe how they learn. Using the scheme developed by Sobel and Letourneau (2015), we coded whether children articulated learning as a process in their responses. Next, we presented children with a vignette about a novel toy, and asked them how they would learn about it; by (1) watching someone else; (2) asking their grown-up, or (3) playing with it.

We coded children’s descriptions of learning in terms of process (source or strategy) as opposed to other kinds of responses. There was a significant effect of age, with older children more likely to generate a process definition, B = 0.04, SE = 0.02 95% CI [.01, .07], Wald χ²(1) = 6.42, p = .01. The main effect of setting was not significant. The effect of age parallels Sobel and Letourneau’s findings that children’s process descriptions of learning increase with age.

Responses to the vignette are shown in Figure 1. A multinomial logistic regression was run on these data. Children tested at the museum were less likely to ask grown-ups as opposed to play with the toy in order to learn about it, B = -0.91, SE = 0.45, Wald χ²(1) = 4.01, p = .04. Another significant effect was that children who responded they would watch others tended to be younger than children who chose the other responses.

These results suggest that while the children’s museum setting does not affect how children define learning, it might prompt them choose more exploratory methods for gaining information than in other settings. This study is part of a larger investigation into children’s exploratory behaviors in a children’s museum. We plan to consider children’s reflections on play in relation to learning further through our other data.

Authors

• Laura Stricker, Brown University
  Presenting Author

• David Marc Sobel, Brown University
  Non-Presenting Author