Relations between children's exploration in a children's museum and their reflections about their exploration

Abstract

We examined 6‐ to 9‐year‐olds' (N = 60, 35 girls, 34% White, 23% Hispanic, 2% Black/African American, 2% Asian/Asian American, 22% Mixed Ethnicity/Race, 17% Unavailable, collected April–September 2019 in Providence, RI, USA) first‐person perspectives on their exploration of museum exhibits. We coded goal setting, goal completion, and behaviors that reflected changes to how goals were accomplished. Whether children played collaboratively related to how often they revised behaviors to accomplish goals (OR = 2.14). When asked to reflect on their play, older children related talk about goals with behavioral revisions, demonstrating that children develop the ability to reflect on their goals when they watch their behaviors change (OR = 1.23). We discuss how these results inform the development of metacognitive reflection on learning through exploration.

Evaluation of Parents’ Views on An Early Childhood Science Program Including Activities in Out-of-School Learning Environments

“…According to the parents, the program as a whole contributed to the child's science learning, the development of the learning process, and science process skills. It is known that OSLE has many benefits for K-12 children (Anderson et al, 2000;Armağan, 2015;Attisano, 2021;Balçın & Yavuz-Topaloğlu, 2019;Bamberger & Tal, 2008;Bozdoğan & Kavcı, 2016;Dağal & Bayındır, 2016;DeMarie, 2001;Dohn, 2011;Erten & Taşçi, 2016;Erentay, 2013;Gerber et al, 2001;Hoisington et al, 2010;Li, 2022;Neill, 2008;Sobel et al, 2022;Okur-Berberoglu et. al., 2013;Toprakkaya, 2016;Uludağ & Erkan, in press;Ürey & Çepni, 2014).…”

Dinos and GoPros: Children’s exploratory behaviors in a museum and their reflections on their learning

“…Data collection occurred between September 2019 and February 2020. We had planned to collect data from 60 children to match the sample size in Sobel et al (2022b) , but data collection was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We were unable to complete the sample when the museum reopened because the space had been reorganized to accommodate distancing requirements, so any additional observations would not have been adequately comparable to the original sample.…”

“…The research assistant gave the child a warning at 8 minutes that their time was almost over. We chose to end the exploration period after 10 minutes partially to match the method used in a previous study of children’s museum exploration using GoPros ( Sobel et al, 2022b ), but also to impose some experimental control for the sake of the reflection interviews; we wanted all children to have the same amount of time exploring to reflect on in the interviews. Moreover, limiting the time spent exploring ensured that the length of the overall research session was roughly the same for all participants, thereby not affecting their experience visiting the museum differently.…”

“…While there are several datasets that aim to capture naturalistic first-person data from babies and children (e.g., Smith et al, 2011 ; Jung et al, 2018 ; Slone et al, 2018 ; Sullivan et al, 2021 ), our design was inspired by a study conducted at Providence Children’s Museum, which also used GoPro cameras to capture children’s first-person perspectives on their interactions with the exhibit elements ( Sobel et al, 2022b ). That study focused on how children set goals for these interactions and the circumstances under which they changed those goals or their approach to achieving those goals.…”

“…Moreover, during this same age range, children also begin to appreciate the distinctions between learning and play and the relations between them, such as the idea that learning can occur through play (e.g., Howard et al, 2006 ; Letourneau and Sobel, 2020 ). In order to capture how children conceptualized their own learning in this exhibition, we showed children the GoPro video that they recorded of their own exploration and asked them to reflect on why they went to a particular exhibit, what they were doing and thinking about while at that exhibit, and whether they learned from their exploration (as in our prior study at the Providence Children’s Museum; Sobel et al, 2022b ). Our goal with these questions was to document how children reflected on their own experiences of exploration and learning, whether they believed they had learned anything from the exploration, and, if so, whether there was any aspect of their exploratory behavior that predicted their saying that they had learned something.…”