Children learn general and specific information from online museum exhibits: an investigation into productive memory processes and the influence of dyadic interaction

• In Event: Children's active learning of science

Abstract

Learning is lifelong and most of it occurs outside formal settings. To understand learning as it occurs without explicit direction from instructors (e.g., within classrooms) or researchers (e.g., within laboratories), it is critical to investigate educational opportunities available through everyday experiences, such as visits to museums, aquariums, and zoos. Importantly, online versions of such naturalistic educational experiences have become increasingly common, especially as many organizations have moved materials online in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Though online educational experiences have limitations (e.g., lack of tactile experiences, less opportunity to engage with docents), they also have unique benefits, including increased accessibility and flexibility with visitation timing.

Research on naturalistic learning in adult populations has assessed outcomes such as on-site visitor engagement and satisfaction (Ali et al., 2018) broad measures of factual knowledge gain (Sweetman et al., 2020), and online learning outcomes driven by productive memory processes (e.g., inferential reasoning and memory integration) (Cronin-Golomb & Bauer, 2022). The developmental literature provides insight on the influence of conversation and hands-on object manipulation on children’s learning in museums (Jant at al., 2014), as well as the benefits of digital tools and guided, hands-on activities (Andre et al 2016). What is not yet known is a) how and to what extent children extract information from such experience, b) how children and caregivers naturally choose to engage with online museum exhibits, and c) how natural dyad interactions drive general and specific learning. Specifically, the extent to which children engage productive memory processes such as inferential reasoning and memory integration remains an open question.

In the current work, we asked 32 dyads (7-8-year-olds and their caregivers) to visit two virtual museum exhibits, developed for community education by museum staff at an art museum. After visiting the exhibits, children were first asked the general prompt “Can you tell me everything you learned from that exhibit?” Children were then asked open-ended questions probing factual recall and the productive memory processes of inferential reasoning, and memory integration. Dyad interaction is currently being analyzed through human-based meaning coding of extra-textual talk.

We coded each participant’s responses to the general prompt and found that the number of correct units of meaning recalled predicted later overall performance on the specific tests of learning (p=.004) as illustrated in Figure 1. There also was a main effect of question type (Figure 2): fact recall was the most accessible compared to inference (pholm=.003) and inference was more accessible than memory integration (pholm=.008) Indeed, this pattern of findings replicates research in adults (Cronin-Golomb & Bauer, 2022). Ongoing coding and analysis will test the expectation that the level of dyadic interaction as indexed by extra-textual talk will predict general recall and subsequent specific learning. The current research provides novel insight to how caregivers and children naturally learn from and interact with everyday learning materials available through community education projects.

Authors

• Lucy Cronin-Golomb, Emory University
  Presenting Author

• Patricia J Bauer, Emory University