Why questions? Investigating the social basis of questioning for learning

提问是家庭和教师支持孩子学习的常用方式，不同类型的问题影响着孩子的探索和理解。然而，我们仍然对提问在STEM学习中的作用知之甚少。这个项目调查了某些类型的问题如何以及为什么会更好地促进学习。特别是，与寻求学习新事物的人提出的问题（寻求信息的问题）相比，儿童可能从清楚知道答案并打算教学的人提出的问题（教学问题）中学习得更好。该项目将我们对儿童思维发展的了解与对特定类型问题如何支持幼儿学习科学的研究联系起来。为了了解更多关于这一点，它检查了两种类型的问题在一系列科学方法中的作用，包括实验室环境中的实验，观察儿童与父母和教师在博物馆和教室中的对话，以及测试故事书阅读日常活动中问题类型的干预措施。除了对家庭的重要性外，项目的发现对学前和小学教师以及在科学博物馆、动物园和游乐中心等非正式科学环境中工作的教育工作者也很有价值。该项目得到了EHR核心研究（ECR）计划的支持，该计划资助基础研究，旨在理解，建立理论解释，并提出干预措施（和创新），以解决STEM兴趣，教育，学习和参与方面的持续挑战。该项目建立在关于儿童在正式和非正式STEM学习环境中从问题中学习的教育和发展研究的悠久传统之上。本研究从一个新的角度出发，考虑了问题、提问者和学习目标之间的关系。具体来说，它提出了来自打算教学的知识渊博的其他人的问题（即，教学问题）可以通过引发儿童对所提问的科学主题的重要性的推断，并通过鼓励他们进一步探索和发现学习来促进学习。这些假设将在五项实证研究中进行测试，每项研究都有自己的具体目标。目的1是确定教学问题及其对儿童在受控实验室环境中学习和探索科学信息的影响。目标2旨在描述使用档案视频和成绩单从ClassBank数据库中的数学，物理和生物课堂教学问题的特点，并探讨教学问题与学生参与的关系。目的3是描述使用教学问题的自然亲子对话记录在儿童语言数据交换系统（CHILDES）数据库，并探讨社会文化因素对父母的倾向，问不同类型的问题的影响。这些因素包括家庭社会经济地位、父母在场、儿童年龄、历史趋势等。目标4测试了父母使用教学问题的自然变化与儿童在科学博物馆中的学习和探索的关系。目标5测试了一种干预措施，促使父母在分享故事书时提出教学问题，并研究了这种干预措施与儿童学习科学知识的关系。在这五项研究中，教学问题预计将对儿童的学习和探索起到促进作用，而社会文化因素预计将影响父母提出的教学问题和儿童的解释。总的来说，这个项目有可能提供经验证据和一个更全面的理论，关于什么时候以及为什么问题会导致学习。这项研究对社会很重要，因为它可以为如何有效地使用问题来加强STEM教学和儿童的学习提供基于证据的建议。

Asking questions is a common way that families and teachers support children's learning, and different types of questions influence children's exploration and understanding. Yet we still know little about the role of questioning in STEM learning. This project investigates how and why certain types of questions may be better at fostering learning. In particular, in contrast to questions asked by a person seeking to learn something new (information-seeking questions), children may learn better from questions asked by someone who clearly knows the answer and intends to teach (pedagogical questions). This project bridges what we know about the development of children's thinking with research on how specific types of questions work to support young children's learning of science. To learn more about this, it examines the role of two types of questions across a range of scientific methods including experiments in laboratory settings, observation of children's conversations with parents and teachers in museums and classrooms, and interventions to test how types of questions work in the everyday activity of storybook reading. In addition to their importance for families, project findings will be valuable to preschool and elementary teachers and to educators who work in informal science settings such as science museums, zoos, and play centers. The project is supported by the EHR Core Research (ECR) program, which funds basic research that seeks to understand, build theory to explain, and suggest interventions (and innovations) to address persistent challenges in STEM interest, education, learning, and participation. The project builds upon a long tradition of educational and developmental research on children's learning from questions in formal and informal STEM learning environments. Taking a new perspective, the project takes into account the relations among questions, the questioner, and learning goals. Specifically, it proposes that questions from knowledgeable others who intend to teach (i.e., pedagogical questions) may facilitate learning by eliciting children's inferences about the importance of the scientific subject being questioned, and by encouraging their further exploration and discovery learning. These assumptions will be tested across five empirical studies, each with its own specific aim. Aim 1 is to identify pedagogical questions and their effects on children's learning and exploration of scientific information in a controlled laboratory environment. Aim 2 seeks to characterize the use of pedagogical questions in math, physics, and biology classrooms using archival videos and transcripts from the ClassBank database, and explores the relation of pedagogical questions to student engagement. Aim 3 is to characterize the use of pedagogical questions in naturalistic parent-child conversations documented in the CHILDES (Child Language Data Exchange System) database, and explore the influence of socio-cultural factors on parents' tendencies to ask different types of questions. These factors include family socioeconomic status, presence of mothers and fathers, children's age, historical trend, and others. Aim 4 tests how natural variation in parents' use of pedagogical questions relates to children's learning and exploration in a science museum. Aim 5 tests an intervention that prompts parents to ask pedagogical questions during storybook sharing and examines how this intervention relates to children's learning of scientific knowledge. Across these five studies pedagogical questions are expected to have a facilitative role for children's learning and exploration, while socio-cultural factors are expected to influence how pedagogical questions are asked by parents and interpreted by children. Taken as a whole, this project has potential to deliver empirical evidence and a more comprehensive theory about when and why questions lead to learning. This research is important to society because it can lead to evidence-based recommendations about how to effectively use questions to enhance STEM teaching and children's learning.