Poster #92 - Science Educator or Veterinarian? Children’s Naturalistic Judgments of Expertise at a Science Center

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

During middle childhood, children become increasingly aware that some individuals may have overlapping expertise but that the depth and breadth of their knowledge may differ by discipline (Danovitch & Keil, 2004). Although most lab-based studies create clear distinctions between informants’ expertise (e.g., Lutz & Keil, 2002), an overlap in knowledge may capture children’s everyday experiences with experts more realistically. In addition, children may attend to other informational cues when encountering real experts (Marble & Boseovski, 2020). To understand children’s views of experts with overlapping expertise in a naturalistic context, the current study examined expertise judgments of two informants (i.e., a veterinarian and a science center educator) at a science center.
Fifty-six 5-to 10-year-olds were recruited at the animal hospital exhibit of a local science center. Children in the Procedure condition (n=30) watched a live veterinary procedure narrated by the veterinarian (while performing the procedure) and a science center educator. Children in the Walkthrough condition (n=26) explored the animal hospital exhibit with their caregivers. All participants were introduced to the veterinarian and educator (via photographs and a short description of each). Then, participants were asked two correctness questions, one for each informant (e.g., “Who would do a better job at treating a sick animal?”). Participants were also asked four future learning questions (e.g., “If you wanted to learn more about what an animal eats, who would you want to learn from?”).
Across conditions, participants endorsed the veterinarian for the treatment question, t(55)= -18.55, p< .001, and the educator for the teaching question, t(55)=6.22, p< .001, significantly more than expected by chance. For the future learning questions, participants in both conditions systematically chose to learn more about treating a sick animal from the veterinarian, t(55)= -9.42, p< .001. Participants trended toward endorsing the educator when wanting to learn about what an animal eats, t(55)=1.92, p=.06, and were equally split in choosing from which informant to learn more about saving and protecting animals, t(55)= 0.00, p=1.00. Additional t-tests against chance were conducted within each condition. Participants in the walkthrough condition were more likely to endorse the educator for learning about a new animal significantly above chance, t(29)= 9.35, p< .001, while participants in the procedure condition were unsystematic in their informant selection, t(25)=0.36, p=.72.
The results are generally consistent with laboratory-based tasks that assess children’s understanding of expertise (Marble & Boseovski, 2020). Despite a systematic tendency to endorse the educator as the teaching expert, some children in the procedure condition switched their answers to the veterinarian when asked the isomorphic future learning question. This may have occurred because they saw a demonstration of the veterinarian’s general animal knowledge, highlighting the overlap in knowledge between the veterinarian and the educator (Danovitch & Keil, 2004). These results suggest that interactions with experts in naturalistic settings could encourage children to reflect on their personal experiences with the experts and consider information beyond experts’ standard domains of knowledge when making expertise judgments.

Authors

• Anjali Pradeep, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Stark Caporaso, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Janet J Boseovski, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Lindsay Genevieve Jarvis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Lindsey Zarecky