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

儿童对科学相关概念领域的集中兴趣的原因和后果

• 批准号: 0217466
• 负责人: Kathy Johnson
• 金额: $ 7.33万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-10-01 至 2004-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0217466&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Causes; Consequences; Children; Focused; Interests

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.

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，为以后的学习奠定了基础。一些幼儿对恐龙或火车等狭窄的话题产生了强烈而集中的兴趣，并固执地要求父母和老师为他们提供有助于增加这些领域知识的书籍、录像带和玩具。长期以来，发展心理学家一直从研究知识提升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一个更困难的问题：为什么有些儿童会发展出狭隘的兴趣，而这些兴趣最初可能会导致儿童的专业知识。这项研究需要继续进行一项正在进行的前瞻性纵向分析，以215名学龄前儿童为样本，对影响狭隘兴趣发展的因素进行分析。基于通过实验室访问、每两个月与家长接触和家访收集的数据，建立了一个初步的兴趣集中发展模型。通过对20名对恐龙非常感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，即早期获得儿童专业知识。这项研究将跟踪孩子们整个过渡到小学，并继续详细分析恐龙专业知识的获取。除了发展元认知意识对儿童策略使用的影响以及向相关兴趣领域转移专业知识的影响外，这项工作还将考虑向学校过渡对重点兴趣扩展的影响。因此，本研究将有助于在内在动机和兴趣研究与儿童专业知识的认知含义研究之间建立联系。本研究的第二个目的是探讨学前科学兴趣对后续科学学习的影响。在研究的前两年，大多数对概念学习感兴趣的孩子将兴趣集中在与科学相关的领域（例如，昆虫、恐龙、马）。大多数其他孩子有相当多的机会通过书籍、玩具和家庭活动来学习科学。考虑到样本中所有儿童的游戏习惯和行为的非常详细的信息的可用性，结合通过每年访问实验室收集的心理测量数据，本研究独特地调查了学龄前与科学相关的游戏兴趣（即新兴科学素养）对儿童在小学过渡到正式科学教学期间的成就动机和成功的影响。由于科学对技术进步和全球经济竞争力的重要性，必须对促进儿童科学能力的一系列因素进行评估，特别是在学龄前和小学阶段。这些研究将支持这样的分析，并为重要的发展问题提供答案，这些问题可能不会在横断面研究中出现。