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

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

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.