STEM Learning and Learning Environments  

The role of picture books in promoting parent-child scientific conversation and learning

Effective Years: 2024-2029

Because children’s first experiences with science often occur with parents, optimizing parent-child interactions is one approach to building an early foundation in science. The central goal of this CAREER project is to promote 4- to 6-year-old children’s scientific learning through parent-child conversations during book reading interactions. The project will focus specifically on the use of scientific process language in science books and on conversation surrounding those books in supporting children’s scientific reasoning. First, the investigators will analyze a sample of science books currently available to the public using automated Natural Language Processing (NLP) to characterize the general use of scientific process language in them. The investigators will then determine, in a series of experimental manipulations, whether children’s books that have science process language increase science learning by scaffolding parent-child conversation about science. This line of work will derive principles to guide the writing of science books for children as well as insights about how parents can foster science learning. The research activities will be conducted with rural families – who are traditionally underrepresented in research and often have limited access to scientific resources – and will be complemented with an integrative education plan to train undergraduate research interns in early science learning and family engagement in partnership with a school district in rural North Carolina. This project is structured around three research objectives that combine natural language processing (NLP), direct observations of parent-child reading interactions, and community engagement methodologies. To characterize how scientific language is integrated into existing educational materials, Objective 1 will use NLP to quantify references to scientific processes (e.g., causal relationships, explanations, predictions) within a large corpus of children's science books. Objective 2 involves a series of controlled experiments to examine how variations in science process language books affect scientific conversations and children’s learning. Objective 3 is a pilot study that will leverage findings from Objectives 1 and 2 to develop a science picture book based on rural caregiver’s feedback and test its effectiveness in enhancing parent-child scientific conversation. Expected findings include the development of a multi-level theory of factors that influence early science engagement (e.g., parent-child interactions, features of books, science capital) to be used by researchers as targets for future interventions aimed at fostering children’s scientific learning and engagement. The findings will be disseminated to researchers across disciplines whose work focuses on family processes, early childhood, and science education. This CAREER project is supported by the EDU Core Research (ECR) program. ECR funds fundamental STEM education research that advances fundamental knowledge in the field on STEM learning, broadening participation in STEM, and STEM workforce development. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.