A theoretical framework and questionnaire for wonder-full education

ABSTRACT

Many recent studies emphasize the fundamental importance of stimulating wonder in education, for example, to increase children’s intrinsic motivation to learn and their emotional engagement with the lesson contents. Our study advances the research regarding wonder in education in three different ways. First, we present a theoretical framework to identify eight teaching strategies and three school policy dimensions relevant for teachers and schools to stimulate wonder in children. Second, based on this framework, we developed the multidimensional Wonder-full Education questionnaire (WEQ). The WEQ is completed by teachers and principals to quantitatively assess the degree to which primary schools and their teachers provide a wonder-stimulating environment. Third, using comprehensive psychometric analyses of the data of N = 220 teachers and N = 91 principals from 182 Dutch schools, we investigated the dimensionality, reliability and validity of the WEQ. The dimensionality analyses identified two primary dimensions of teaching strategies and confirmed the three-dimensional structure of a school policy for stimulating wonder. Overall, the results suggest that the WEQ has satisfactory psychometric properties. We conclude that the new framework and questionnaire allow research regarding wonder in education to be extended from mainly theoretical work to empirical research that can also advance educational practice.

KEYWORDS:

• wonder
• wonder-full education questionnaire
• teaching strategies
• school policy
• validation

Data availability statement:

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author, JC. The data are not publicly available due to data containing information that could compromise the privacy/consent of research participants.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John Templeton Foundation [grant number 60815].

Notes on contributors

Judith M. Conijn

Dr. Judith M. Conijn is a post-doctoral researcher at the department of Educational and Family Studies, VU University Amsterdam. After obtaining her PhD in 2013 at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, she published mainly on psychometric topics regarding the development and validation of self-report questionnaires and the detection of aberrant item-response patterns. In the last few years, she has directed her main research focus to educational topics such as wonder in education.

Willeke Rietdijk

Dr. Willeke Rietdijk is a post-doctoral researcher at the department of Educational and Family Studies, VU University Amsterdam. Following a decade of experience as an educational researcher in England, she obtained her PhD from the University of Southampton, UK, in 2019. Her research interests and expertise concern the intersection of science -, environmental, contemplative and holistic education, as well as consciousness studies. She also has expertise in first person research methods.

Evelien Broekhof

Dr. Evelien Broekhof is a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Educational and Family Studies, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She obtained her PhD in developmental psychology in 2019 from Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research focusses on the roles of affective states (e.g., guilt, empathy, and wonder) in the development of children’s moral behaviours. She recently developed an instrument to quantitatively assess children’s sense of wonder. In her research, she uses a variety of methods including experiments, questionnaires, observations and qualitative semi-structured interviews.

Lucija Andre

Dr. Lucija Andre is a post-doctoral researcher at the Research institute of Child Development and Education, University of Amsterdam. She completed her PhD in 2018 in Educational Sciences at the same university and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the Wonder-full education project at the VU University Amsterdam. She has published on topics related to motivation for learning, work, health, and museum and music education, and particularly, on the role of positive attitudes such as future time perspective on students’ and teachers’ learning and career planning.

Anders Schinkel

Dr. Anders Schinkel is an Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at the department of Educational and Family Studies, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has published on a range of topics in philosophy of education, as well as in philosophy of history, ethics, and other areas. In recent years he authored a number of articles on wonder and education, and his book Wonder and Education: On the Educational Importance of Contemplative Wonder appeared with Bloomsbury in November 2020.