CAREER: Curiosity, exploratory play, and the foundations of scientific inquiry

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The proposed project investigates the broad claim that it is through exploratory play that young children learn causal relationships that provide a foundation for early science education. The work has important implications for education research and materials develop because it engages central assumptions underlying inquiry-based instruction and the design of museum exhibits. The investigator suggests that exploratory play is consistent with formal principles of causal learning. She predicts that children (ages 4-9 years) selectively engage in such play a) when observed evidence provides equal support for more than one plausible hypothesis, and b) when observed evidence provides strong support for a hypothesis that is implausible given the child?s naïve theories. The PI suggests that these two conditions of exploration are united by a common learning mechanism (captured by Bayesian inference models). She will conduct 10 studies, including modeling and randomized controlled experiments, looking at children?s interest in exploring ambiguity and at their abilities to design informative interventions. The specific causes investigated fall roughly within the domains of mechanical engineering and intuitive physics, as the children explore the working of gears and switches and the relation of mass to balance, but the work has implications for the understanding of causation in STEM fields more broadly. The proposed research will be conducted in collaboration with the Boston Children?s Museum and the Museum of Science.