"Why do dogs pant?": Characteristics of parental explanations about science predict children's knowledge.

Using a new method for examining parental explanations in a laboratory setting, the prompted explanation task, this study examines how characteristics of parental explanations about biology relate to children's knowledge. Parents (N = 148; Mage  = 38; 84% female, 16% male; 67% having completed college) of children ages 7-10 (Mage  = 8.92; 47% female, 53% male; 58% White, 9.5% Black, 9.5% Asian) provided answers to eight how and why questions about biology. Parents used a number of different approaches to address the questions, including providing more mechanistic responses to how questions and more teleological responses to why questions. The characteristics of parental explanations-most notably, how frequently parents provided correct responses-predicted children's performance on measures of verbal intelligence and biological knowledge. Additional exploratory analyses and implications for children's learning are discussed.

Mind the gap: How incomplete explanations influence children's interest and learning behaviors.

Children rely on others' explanations to learn scientific concepts, yet sometimes the explanations they receive are incomplete. Three studies explore how receiving incomplete or complete explanations influences children's subsequent interest and engagement in learning behaviors to obtain additional information about a topic. Children ages 7-10 (N = 275; 49% female, 51% male; 55% white) viewed question-and-answer exchanges about animal behaviors that included either a complete causal explanation of the behavior or an explanation that was missing a key step. Children rated how knowledgeable they felt after hearing the explanation (Study 1) or how much information was missing from the explanation (Studies 2 and 3) and reported how interested they were in learning more about the topic. They also completed two measures of learning behaviors: a book choice task (all studies) and a card choice task (Studies 1 and 2). In the book choice task, children opted to learn about the topics of the incomplete explanations more frequently than the topics of the complete explanations. However, there was no evidence of selective learning behaviors in the card choice task and children's self-reported interest in learning more about each animal behavior was not directly related to the type of explanation they had received. Individual differences in children's interest and learning behaviors were linked to verbal intelligence and domain-specific biological knowledge. Implications for the information-gap theory of learning and children's learning in multiple contexts are discussed.

Cognitive reflection and authoritarianism relate to how parents respond to children's science questions.

When children ask questions about science, parents use a variety of strategies to answer them, including providing accurate information, connecting to prior knowledge, or simply saying "I do not know." This study examines the factors underlying individual differences in parental explanatory characteristics. Parents (N = 148; Mage = 38; 84% female, 16% male; 58% with White American children; 67% having completed college; 49% with household income over $75,000) of children ages 7 to 10 answered eight questions about biology as if they were responding to their child. They also completed three measures of different aspects of reasoning and values: the Picture Vocabulary Test (PVT) to measure verbal intelligence (Gershon et al., 2013), the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Toplak et al., 2014), which measures the tendency to override intuitive but incorrect responses to engage in reflective thinking, and the Authoritarianism Scale (Feldman & Stenner, 1997), which measures a parent's preference for encouraging obedience toward authority figures over encouraging their child's autonomy. Our findings support that different factors are associated with different explanatory characteristics. Parents high in reflective thinking tend to provide more connections to other knowledge in their explanations, while parents high in authoritarianism tend to provide fewer references to uncertainty and how to manage it. Implications for effective parent-child communication and children's scientific understanding will be discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

"I Want to Know More!": Children Are Sensitive to Explanation Quality When Exploring New Information.

When someone encounters an explanation perceived as weak, this may lead to a feeling of deprivation or tension that can be resolved by engaging in additional learning. This study examined to what extent children respond to weak explanations by seeking additional learning opportunities. Seven- to ten-year-olds (N = 81) explored questions and explanations (circular or mechanistic) about 12 animals using a novel Android tablet application. After rating the quality of an initial explanation, children could request and receive additional information or return to the main menu to choose a new animal to explore. Consistent with past research, there were both developmental and IQ-related differences in how children evaluated explanation quality. But across development, children were more likely to request additional information in response to circular explanations than mechanistic explanations. Importantly, children were also more likely to request additional information in direct response to explanations that they themselves had assigned low ratings, regardless of explanation type. In addition, there was significant variability in both children's explanation evaluation and their exploration, suggesting important directions for future research. The findings support the deprivation theory of curiosity and offer implications for education.