Inducing Surprise in Children Promotes Theory Revision

• In Event: Learning From Surprise in Childhood: Empirical, Methodological, and Theoretical Advances

Abstract

Getting learners to revise their naïve theory in accordance with the accepted scientific theory has proven extremely difficult (Carey, 2000). A prominent instructional tool to facilitate theory revision is to induce a cognitive conflict between the naïve theory and the scientific concept, which is typically done by confronting learners with evidence that is in conflict with their naïve theory. While intuitively plausible, a wealth of research has found that conflicting evidence does not suffice to change the learner’s naïve theory (see Limón, 2001). Instead, learners interpret conflicting evidence as an exception and ignore or only slightly modify their naïve theory.

We hypothesized that asking learners to generate a prediction before presenting conflicting evidence promotes theory revision. Generating predictions enables learners to be surprised by events that refute the prediction, which leads to increased attention to the conflicting evidence (Brod, Hasselhorn, & Bunge, 2018). The surprise induced by incorrect predictions could, thus, facilitate theory revision by helping learners to focus on and remember conflicting evidence. We tested these hypotheses in the domain of water displacement. Among children, a common misconception is that the mass of an object determines how much water it will displace (Dawson & Rowell, 1984). The scientifically correct answer is that only the volume of the object matters. Throughout our experiment, children (n = 94, age 6–9) saw pairs of spheres and indicated which sphere displaces more water. Surprise was measured via the pupil dilation response (PDR) and its intensity was manipulated by either letting children generate predictions or give post-hoc expectancy ratings (i.e., postdictions). Based on previous findings, we assumed that conflicting outcomes would elicit a PDR, but only if a prediction was made beforehand. The design, thus, yielded an indirect experimental manipulation of surprise intensity.

Condition differences as a function of the learning task condition (prediction, postdiction) were assessed in a pretest–posttest–transfer test sequence. While all children improved significantly from pre- to posttest, children in the prediction condition showed higher learning gains than children in the postdiction condition (d = .49). Moreover, children in the prediction condition also exhibited higher transfer test performance, indicating that generating predictions facilitated their theory revision (d = .57). Regarding the pupillary data, consistent with previous findings, unexpected results elicited a PDR only when a prediction was made beforehand. To examine the link between surprise and theory revision, we then tested whether the PDR in the prediction condition was related to children’s revision of their naïve theory. In line with our hypotheses, we found that children’s PDR after unexpected trials predicted a change towards the scientifically correct theory in the next trial (Beta = 1.23). In summary, results suggest that generating predictions induces surprise about conflicting evidence, which in turn facilitates theory revision.

Authors

• Garvin Brod, DIPF & Goethe University Frankfurt
  Presenting Author

• Maria Theobald, Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education
  Non-Presenting Author