Measuring Parent Rated Interest and Deprivation type Curiosity in Swedish Young Children - are they meaningfully distinct?

Abstract

Background Proxy ratings of young children’s curiosity has the potential to be useful for research in Sweden. One such proxy rating is the parent-rating Interest/Deprivation Young Children scale. This scale has previously only been validated in Dutch samples, where it differentiated curiosity dimensions of interest (joyful exploration) and deprivation (reduction of aversive feelings of not knowing). Objective The objective of this study was to investigate internal and construct validity of the Swedish version of the Interest/Deprivation Young Children scale. Method A translation of the Interest/Deprivation Young Children scale was conducted and then administered to 266 parents in Sweden, who rated their children (4-6-years old) on 10 items, with 5 items each for subscales of interest and deprivation dimensions of epistemic curiosity. Responses were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis. Results Results indicate acceptable internal reliability for deprivation-curiosity items (α = 0.78) and for interest-curiosity items (α = 0.79). For the combined scale score alpha was found good (α = 0.84). However, confirmatory factor analysis failed to differentiate interest and deprivation dimensions of curiosity. Conclusions Item revisions are suggested which could be implemented for further investigations. Also, the possibility of using the I/D-YC total score as a more general measure of child curiosity is argued for. An open question is how other dimensions of curiosity might be more viable for proxy ratings of child curiosity.

Question asking practice fosters curiosity in young children

“…Correlations among behavioral curiosity measures were generally small (r s = − .06-.27). Parent report of I-type and D-type epistemic curiosity were highly correlated, which could be due to shared method variance (r s (101) = .70; see also Kaneko, 2022).…”

Validation of the I- and D-type Epistemic Curiosity scale among Young Chinese Children and Implications on Early Curiosity Nurture

“…Although children worldwide share a universal interest in exploring their surroundings, social norms and cultural values can in uence their questioning and information-seeking behaviors (Goupil & Proust, 2023). While the I/D-YC scale has been validated in Dutch samples, it failed to differentiate between the I and D types of curiosity in young Swedish children (Kaneko, 2022). Moreover, the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II, a general curiosity scale for adults developed by Kashdan et al (2009), was widely used in western countries but showed inappropriateness for Chinese young adults.…”