Poster #75 - Exploring Sources of Individual Differences in Children’s Interest in Science

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Given recent efforts to promote children’s engagement in STEM learning, it is important to understand how children’s interest in science relates to other characteristics, including science-specific and domain-general curiosity, and cognitive factors, such as intelligence, inhibition, and working memory. The current study examines the relative contribution of each of these factors to individual differences in children’s self-reported interest in science.
Children ages 7-10 (n=91) indicated their level of interest in 5 science and 5 non-science related topics (see Table 1) using a 4-point scale (modified from Bathgate & Schunn, 2016 and Korpan et al., 1998) As part of a larger study of children’s learning, children also completed measures of Epistemic Curiosity (Lauriola et al., 2015) and Science Curiosity in Learning Environments (SCILE; Weible & Zimmerman, 2016), in addition to measures of Verbal Intelligence (KBIT2; Kaufman & Kaufman, 2002), inhibitory control and attention (flanker task; derived from Rueda et al., 2004), and working memory (from the WISC-V; Wechsler, 2014).
Overall, children reported high levels of interest in both science and non-science topics (see Table 1), although children’s responses were more consistent for science (α= .54) than non-science items (α= .38). In addition, there was no significant correlation between children’s mean responses to the science and non-science items, r= -.10, p= .338, suggesting that children differentiated between the items and that they were not simply responding enthusiastically to all questions.
Further analyses focused on science interest. Hierarchical multiple regression was used to assess the contribution of each predictor to children’s science interest ratings, after controlling for the influence of age and gender (see Table 2). Age and gender were entered in Block 1, and explained only 3.5% of the variance in science interest ratings. Thus, we did not find age or gender to be significant predictors of children’s science interest, perhaps because our participants were still in elementary school, whereas interest in science, particularly among girls, declines more quickly in the middle school years (e.g., Potvin & Hasni, 2014). After entering the additional predictors, the amount of variance accounted for significantly increased to 21.8%, F(8, 74) = 2.168, p= .040. Two predictors were significantly related to science interest: verbal IQ (B = .053, p= .034) and the SCILE stretching subscale (B = 1.071, p = .023), which measures general motivation to seek out new knowledge and experiences. Higher IQ and higher stretching scores were related to greater self-reported interest in science.
These results support that verbal intelligence and motivation to seek out new knowledge are related to individual differences in children’s interest in science topics. Perhaps children with stronger verbal skills find it easier to understand scientific topics, or perhaps they receive more encouragement from parents and teachers to engage with science topics. These kinds of positive experiences with science may also help children feel more interested in seeking out new knowledge in general. Additional research is needed to further understand the relationship between these variables as well as how they link to different kinds of science learning behaviors.

Authors

• Allison Williams, University of Louisville
  Presenting Author

• Kaitlin Rose Sands, The University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Candice Mills, The University of Texas at Dallas
  Non-Presenting Author

• Judith Danovitch, University of Louisville
  Non-Presenting Author