Parent–Child Conversations About Animals in Informal Learning Environments

ABSTRACT

A large body of empirical research has focused on understanding children's biological knowledge development. However, limited research has investigated the informal learning experiences through which children actively construct biological concepts. The current study focused on examining whether parents provide information that supports and shapes children's emerging biological knowledge within settings that provide opportunities for biological learning about animals. We observed parent–child interaction within informal learning environments about two different types of animals: A penguin exhibit at a zoo and an insect exhibit at a science museum. Fifty-two families with preschool and school-aged children participated. Parents more frequently provided important, unobservable information such as predictions and causal inferences to the youngest children, potentially supporting the development of children's knowledge. However, parents seldom explicitly supported their children's knowledge by providing explanations of readily observable biological processes. Further research examining these and other direct and indirect animal experiences in informal learning settings can help us better understand how to support children's early biological learning.

Notes

¹Kappa statistics were not calculated for visitor motivation and content codes because they do not meet the assumption for mutually exclusive categories.

²Preliminary comparisons revealed no difference between preschool and school-aged children in terms of their animate or inanimate pronoun usage, both p values >.55, so all children were analyzed together.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Megan S. Geerdts

Megan S. Geerdts is a Post-doctoral Fellow in the DUCK Lab at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her research investigates children's early learning opportunities within informal contexts, including science centers, zoos, parent–child interaction, and media exposure. E-mail: [email protected].

Gretchen A. Van de Walle

Gretchen A. Van de Walle is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at Rutgers University–Newark. She studies children's conceptual development about physical and living entities and the interaction between conceptual development and linguistic abilities.

Vanessa LoBue

Vanessa LoBue is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University–Newark. Her research focuses on cognitive, emotional, and perceptual development in infants and young children, with a specific interest in threat perception and early fear learning.