Causes and Consequences of Children's Focused Interests on Conceptual Domains Related to Science

对于大多数孩子来说，学龄前和小学时期充满了培养各种兴趣的机会，这些兴趣为以后的学习奠定了基础。一些年幼的孩子对恐龙或火车等狭隘话题产生了强烈的、专注的兴趣，并顽固地追求父母和老师为他们提供书籍、录像带和玩具，这将有助于他们在这些领域增加知识。虽然发展心理学家长期以来一直从考察知识水平的提高对儿童信息处理的影响的角度对这类儿童感兴趣，但很少有研究人员试图回答更困难的问题，即为什么一些儿童发展了狭隘的兴趣，这可能会导致儿童时期的专长。这项研究需要继续对215名学龄前儿童的狭隘兴趣发展因素进行前瞻性纵向分析。基于实验室访问、与父母的双月接触和家访收集的数据，初步构建了关注兴趣发展的模型。通过对20名对恐龙有很高兴趣的儿童的知识获取和策略使用的详细分析，研究了集中兴趣的一个后果，即儿童早期获得专业知识的情况。这项研究将跟踪儿童从小学到小学的整个过渡过程，并继续详细分析恐龙专业知识的获得情况。这项工作将考虑向学校过渡对重点兴趣的扩大的影响，以及发展元认知意识对儿童使用策略和将专业知识转移到相关感兴趣领域的影响。因此，这项研究将有助于在内在动机和兴趣的研究与儿童专业知识的认知含义的研究之间建立联系。本研究的第二个目的是调查学龄前儿童与科学相关的兴趣对后续科学学习的影响。在研究的头两年里，大多数对需要概念学习的主题有兴趣的儿童将他们的兴趣集中在与科学有关的领域(例如昆虫、恐龙、马)。其他大多数孩子都有相当多的机会通过书籍、玩具和家庭活动来学习科学。鉴于样本中所有儿童的游戏习惯和行为的极其详细的信息，结合每年访问实验室收集的心理测量数据，本研究独一无二地调查了学龄前儿童与科学有关的游戏兴趣(即新兴的科学素养)在向小学正规科学教育过渡的整个过程中对儿童成就动机和成功的影响。鉴于科学对技术进步和全球经济竞争力的重要性，必须评估有助于儿童科学能力的各种因素，特别是在学龄前和小学阶段。这些研究将支持这种分析，并为横断面研究中可能不会出现的重要发展问题提供答案。

For most children, the preschool and elementary school years are rife with opportunities to cultivate a wide variety of interests that set the stage for later learning. Some young children develop intense, focused interests on narrow topics such as dinosaurs or trains and doggedly pursue their parents and teachers to provide them with books, videotapes, and toys that will help to increase their knowledge in these areas. While developmental psychologists have long been interested in such children from the standpoint of examining the impact of heightened knowledge on children's processing of information, few researchers have attempted to answer the more difficult question of why some children develop narrow interests that could potentially lead to childhood expertise in the first place. This research entails the continuation of an ongoing prospective longitudinal analysis of the factors that contribute to the development of narrow interests in a sample of 215 preschoolers. A preliminary model of focused interest development has been constructed based on data collected through laboratory visits, bimonthly contacts with parents, and home visits. One consequence of focused interests, the early acquisition of childhood expertise, has been examined through a detailed analysis of the knowledge acquisition and strategy use of 20 children with very high levels of interest in dinosaurs. This research will follow children throughout the transition to elementary school and continue detailed analyses of the acquisition of expertise on dinosaurs. The work will consider the impact of the transition to school on the expansion of focused interests, in addition to the impact of developing metacognitive awareness on children's strategy use and the transfer of expertise to related areas of interest. This, this research will help to provide a link between research on intrinsic motivation and interest and research on the cognitive implications of childhood expertise. A second objective of this research is to investigate the effects of preschool interests related to science on subsequent science learning. During the first two years of the study, the majority of children with focused interests on topics that entailed concept learning concentrated their interests in domains related to science (e.g., insects, dinosaurs, horses). Most other children had considerable opportunities for science learning through books, toys, and family activities. Given the availability of extremely detailed information on the play habits and behaviors of all of the children in the sample, combined with psychometric data collected through yearly visits to the laboratory, this research is uniquely situated to investigate the impact of preschool play interests related to science (i.e., emergent science literacy) on children's achievement motivation and success throughout the transition to formal science instruction in elementary school. Due to the importance of science for the advancement of technology and global economic competitiveness, it is essential that the range of factors that contribute to children's scientific competence, particularly through the preschool and elementary school years, be assessed. These studies will support such an analysis and provide answers to important developmental questions that might not emerge in cross-sectional studies.