Investigating students’ exploration when encountering differing levels of uncertainty

• In Event: Fostering Children’s Curiosity in Early Childhood

Abstract

Lowenstein’s (1994) Information Gap theory defines curiosity as the desire to resolve information gaps in one’s knowledge, suggesting a U-shaped curve between uncertainty and curiosity: too little uncertainty is boring, and too much is intimidating. Because curiosity is linked to more meaningful learning, understanding how children respond to uncertainty can inform how to foster curiosity and promote learning (Author, 2022). This study examined how students choose to explore across differing levels of uncertainty. Our research questions were: 1) How much and what types of uncertainty will children choose to explore? And 2) Does exploration of uncertainty vary across trials?

Kindergarten- through eighth-grade students (N=43, 19 female) were given 10 exploration options in a digital activity (See Figure 1). Each option provided information about a specific country, with uncertainty manipulated by 1) showing a map of the country (known) or a world map (unknown), and 2) the number of informational items that would be presented (1-5 facts). Children were told they could select a country to explore by clicking it and then seeing and hearing information three times. After the third choice, they were given the choice to select two additional countries.

In exploring how much and what types of uncertainty children choose to explore, we observed 34% of selections for unknown countries with 37% of children never selecting the unknown option and 7% always selecting it across the three trials. The amount of total information selected had a possible and observed range of 4-14 items, M=10.6 (SD=2.6). For the extra exploration opportunities, 59% and 32% of children chose one or two additional countries to explore, respectively.

We next investigated if exploration of uncertainty varied across the first three trials. A repeated ANCOVA showed children choosing more uncertainty (unknown countries) on later selections (F(2,66)=5.53, p < .01, ηp2=.15), with unknown countries selected for 21% of first explorations, 37% of second explorations, and 47% of third explorations. There were no significant differences in amount of information selected across the 3 selections (p=.59), and exploration did not significantly differ by gender or grade for either analysis. These observations of children’s exploratory choices indicate an initial preference to explore known information with exploration of the unknown increasing with trials, but variability in the amount of information sought was more stable. Interestingly, the amount of information explored was associated with exploring more unknown countries (see Figure 2).

We also investigated whether students’ preferences for exploring uncertainty related to exploration on the “bonus” trials. When comparing children who stopped vs. continued exploring after the initial three trials, amount of information explored was unrelated (p=.54) but there was some indication that continuing to explore was associated with exploring fewer unknowns during the first three trials (X2(3,43) =11.277, p=.01).

These findings support prior evidence of an optimal level of uncertainty that motivates students to continue exploring, but patterns differ based on the type of uncertainty. This level likely differs across individuals, and further work should examine individual differences and how tolerance for uncertainty and curiosity can be fostered.

Authors

• Natalie Evans, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author

• Shoronda Erica Matthews, Boston University

• Jamie J Jirout, University of Virginia - Charlottesville