Children’s scientific curiosity: In search of an operational definition of an elusive concept

Jirout, Jamie; Klahr, David

doi:10.1016/j.dr.2012.04.002

Cited by 261 publications

(276 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Children showed preference to explore the surprise and unexpected condition most when they meet uncertainty situation. On the other hand, according to Charlesworth's theory of curiosity, students would like to explore more to unexpected condition than expected condition when they are seeking for answer (Jirout & Klahr, 2012). But, in the present study, students were familiar to the currently existing school ground.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Effects of Outdoor School Ground Lessons on Students’ Science Process Skills and Scientific Curiosity

Ting¹,

Siew²

2014

JEL

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The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of outdoor school ground lessons on Year Five students' science process skills and scientific curiosity. A quasi-experimental design was employed in this study. The participants in the study were divided into two groups, one subjected to the experimental treatment, defined as "eco-hunt" group and the other had no experimental treatment, defined as control group. This study used intact four classes which consisted of 119 students and randomly assigned to the treatment (n = 63) and control groups (n = 56). Students' science process skill was measured by a self-developed Science Process Skills Test and students' scientific curiosity was measured using Children Scientific Curiosity Scale adapted from Harty and Beall (1984). The results showed a significant difference in post-test mean scores between students in "eco-hunt" group and control group in both students' science process skills and scientific curiosity. Follow-up comparisons on the dimensions of science process skills and scientific curiosity were analyzed and discussed. The findings of this study will provide a framework for science teachers to teach students through interesting and meaningful outdoor activities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Effects of Outdoor School Ground Lessons on Students’ Science Process Skills and Scientific Curiosity

Ting¹,

Siew²

2014

JEL

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“…1(left). The tablet had three apps that were used during the experiment, namely, the main Story-maker app and two curiosity-assessment apps: Free exploration app and the Fish task app [13]. All taps and interactions with the tablet were recorded.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The third and last measure was the Fish task app [13]. This app is portrayed as a game in which the children are in a submarine with two windows.…”

Section: Uncertainty-seekingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We have developed a novel digital version of this free exploration measure, to be used in tablet-related interactions. Fish task: We used a recently developed uncertainty seeking tablet app, called "The Fish Task" [13], which addresses children's desire to choose options containing unknown, probabilistic results more than certain and deterministic ones. Question generation: We used an established and more qualitatively-derived measure, namely, the question generation task in which the child is prompted to ask as many questions about a topic, without providing answers [10].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Can Children Catch Curiosity from a Social Robot?

Gordon

Breazeal

Engel

2015

Proceedings of the Tenth Annual ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction

142

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“…We suggest that scientific reasoning is a specific type of intentional information seeking, one that shares basic reasoning mechanisms and motivation with other types of information seeking (Kuhn, 2011a). For example, curiosity is a critical motivational component that underlies information seeking (Jirout & Klahr, 2012), yet only in scientific reasoning is curiosity sated by deliberate data collection and formal analysis of evidence. In this way, scientific reasoning differs from other types of information seeking in that it requires additional cognitive resources as well as an integration of cultural tools.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%