CAREER: Cultivating Curiosity to Promote Learning and Discovery

好奇心几乎是生活方方面面成功的基础。好奇心导致在科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域取得更高的成就，改善心理健康，并适应衰老。经济专家最近认为，好奇心是改变社会、推动创新和塑造未来所必需的关键特征之一。尽管这表明了培养新一代好奇心儿童的重要性，但好奇心是如何发展起来的，以及如何有效地促进好奇心，仍然是一个基本问题。这个项目将提供关于好奇心的发展积木、形成好奇心的因素以及早期好奇心如何影响后来的学习结果的新信息。调查结果将通过旨在将促进好奇心的活动纳入儿童日常体验的社区活动来传播。通过在孩子们踏入教室之前就主动培养好奇心，这个项目将对孩子们的教育参与度和STEM职业生涯的最终成功产生连锁影响。尽管好奇心在学习中很重要，但人们对驱动早期好奇心的基本机制知之甚少。利用新开发的研究好奇心的综合技术，这个项目将填补这一空白，并提供有关好奇心从婴儿期开始的心理过程的新信息。借鉴认知科学、发展科学和教育学，研究问题包括：(1)早期好奇心涉及哪些认知过程？(2)好奇心是如何在婴儿期和幼儿期展开的？(3)社会环境在好奇心形成中扮演什么角色？(4)好奇心如何影响STEM学习准备？(5)什么因素导致学龄前儿童好奇心的增加？这个项目采取了多方法的方法，整合了实验、观察和纵向设计，并将提高我们在早期好奇心中发现和测量细粒度个体差异的能力。这项研究将改变好奇心的理论，它是如何发展的，以及它是如何影响学习的。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Curiosity is fundamental to success in nearly every facet of life. Curiosity leads to enhanced achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, improved psychological well-being, and adaptive aging. Economics experts recently identified curiosity as one of the key characteristics required to transform society, drive innovation, and shape the future. Though this points to the importance of cultivating new generations of curious children, there are still basic questions about how curiosity first develops and how to effectively promote it. This project will provide new information about the developmental building blocks of curiosity, the factors that shape curiosity, and the ways in which early curiosity influences later learning outcomes. Findings will be disseminated through community-based events designed to incorporate curiosity-promoting activities into children’s everyday experiences. By proactively fostering curiosity before children even step foot in the classroom, this project will have cascading influences on children’s educational engagement and ultimate success in STEM careers.Despite the importance of curiosity in learning, the basic mechanisms that drive early curiosity are poorly understood. Using newly developed, comprehensive techniques for studying curiosity, this project will fill this gap and provide new information about the psychological processes involved in curiosity starting in infancy. Drawing on cognitive science, developmental science, and education, research questions include: (1) what are the cognitive processes involved in early curiosity? (2) how does curiosity unfold across infancy and early childhood? (3) what role does the social environment play in shaping curiosity? (4) how does curiosity impact STEM learning readiness? (5) what factors cause increases in preschool-aged children’s curiosity? This project takes a multi-method approach by integrating experimental, observational, and longitudinal designs, and will advance our ability to detect and measure fine-grained individual differences in early curiosity. This research will transform theories of curiosity, how it develops, and how it impacts learning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.