Poster #1 - Children’s Responses to Parents’ Open-Ended Questions During Tinkering Activities Support Memory and STEM Learning

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Attention, Learning, Memory

Integrative Statement

Tinkering exhibits and activities, in which children and families engage in open-ended problem-solving, have grown in popularity in recent years as a way to promote children’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning and interest. The current project examines linkages between parent-child conversational interactions during tinkering and children's abilities to recall STEM-related information after tinkering. As such this research connects with work on tinkering (Honey & Kanter, 2013), and more broadly, to the literature on the ways that parent-child conversational interactions in informal educational environments can support STEM learning (e.g., Callanan et al., 2012). Moreover, because we assess children's memory for their tinkering experiences, the work also intersects with research focusing on the nature of parent-child conversations as events unfold, and the impact conversations during events can have on children's comprehension and remembering of their experiences (e.g., Haden et al., 2001). Parent-child reminiscing shortly after tinkering provides a meaningful measure of children's STEM learning.

We observed 51, 6- to 8-year-old children (M age = 6.98; 43% girls) in a tinkering exhibit as they worked with their parents for on average 39 minutes (range 9-142) to make creations using real tools and materials. Afterwards, the families were invited to reminisce about their tinkering experiences. We coded videos of families’ tinkering experiences for parents’ use of open-ended questions (e.g., What, How, Why), parents’ use of yes-no questions, and children’s responses to these questions. We created a measure of joint talk by dividing the total number of responses children provided in the tinkering exhibit by the total number of questions adults asked. We coded the families' reminiscing conversations for children’s elaborative statements that added new information about the events. We also coded children's contributions to the reminiscing conversations for STEM-related content (e.g., the function of tools, engineering design practices, and mathematics). Based on prior work (e.g., Tessler & Nelson, 1994), we hypothesized that children who responded to more of their parents' open-ended questions would make more elaborative statements when reminiscing. We also hypothesized that children who responded to more of their parents' open-ended questions during tinkering would contribute more STEM content to the reminiscing conversations. Essentially, we thought that joint talk during an experience would support children's attention and help make children's physical engagement in tinkering the focus of explicit learning.

Children who answered a greater percentage of their parents’ open-ended questions during tinkering contributed significantly more statements to the reminiscing conversations after tinkering, r = .38, p = .007, and talked more about STEM, r = .36, p = .01. By contrast, children who answered a greater percentage of their parents’ yes-no questions did not contribute significantly more statements to the reminiscing conversations, r = .18, p = .22, nor did they talk more about STEM, r = .17, p = .23.

These findings suggest that children’s verbal contributions to conversations during shared tinkering experiences, specifically their responses to open-ended questions, can support memory and promote STEM learning. Implications for enhancing children’s engagement and learning in informal educational environments will be discussed.

Authors

• Lauren C Pagano, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Krista R Smith, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Diana I Acosta, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Haden, Loyola University
  Non-Presenting Author