Children’s Engagement in Additional Learning Following Complete and Incomplete Explanations

• In Event: 2-030 - Explanation and Exploration in Children’s Intuitive and Scientific Theories

Integrative Statement

Explanations are a powerful catalyst for children’s learning. However, at times, children encounter incomplete explanations, leaving a gap in their knowledge, which some have argued leads to a feeling of deprivation (Jirout & Klahr, 2012; Loewenstein, 1994). This feeling can be addressed by either engaging in additional learning to fill the gap, or by rejecting future learning (if the gap seems too large to resolve; see Keil, 2006). The current study examines how recognizing gaps in causal explanations influences children’s interest in additional learning.

Children ages 7-10 (n=91) watched animated conversations in which a character asked a question about an animal’s behavior and a second character provided an explanation that omitted a key causal mechanism (see Figure 1). The first character then asked a follow-up question about the missing mechanism, and the second character either answered the question (complete trials) or stated ignorance (incomplete trials). Following each sequence of questions and responses, children indicated how much they knew about the topic of the explanation. Complete and incomplete trials were presented in pairs (order counterbalanced across participants). Following each pair of trials, children chose between two books to read later: one on the topic of the complete explanation and one on the topic of the incomplete explanation. After all 5 pairs of trials, children completed a card choice task in which they selected up to 10 animal information cards (corresponding to each animal in the explanation trials) to take home with them. The book choice and card choice served as measures of interest in future learning. Children also completed a verbal intelligence measure (KBIT-2).

Children rated their knowledge lower for incomplete than complete items, t(90)= 6.05, p< .001, supporting that they recognized that incomplete explanations were less informative. Children’s learning behaviors were also related to explanation type: they selected books corresponding to incomplete explanations more often than chance (p= .003) and chose animal cards corresponding to incomplete explanations more often than those corresponding to complete explanations, t(89)= 2.095, p= .039. In a hierarchical regression analysis, age and verbal IQ were entered at Step 1, and explained 5.2% of the variance in book choice (see Table 2). After entering knowledge ratings for incomplete and complete items, the amount of variance accounted for significantly increased to 9.7%, F(2, 85)= 3.197 , p= .046. Lower knowledge ratings for incomplete items and higher ratings for complete items were both associated with more frequent choice of incomplete item books (ps> .029). When a similar hierarchical regression was conducted for total number of cards taken, using the same control variables in Step 1 and predictors in Step 2, the model was not significant, nor were there any significant predictors.

These results suggest that when children face situations where their exploration is restricted (i.e., they can only choose to hear one of two books), they prioritize obtaining information to fill gaps in their knowledge. However, when exploration is not restricted (i.e., the card choice task), they engage in broader learning behaviors that may be driven by multiple factors.

Authors

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

• Judith Danovitch, University of Louisville
  Non-Presenting Author

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

• Allison Williams, University of Louisville
  Non-Presenting Author