The power of asking: assessing and promoting the use of parents' and children's questions during play, literacy, and language learning activitie
Date
2021
Authors
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Question-asking supports children’s learning in a variety of domains, from vocabulary acquisition to STEM learning. The current dissertation includes three different studies, each of which assesses the role of questions in children’s learning. The three studies also explore how different contexts and affordances, such as media use (i.e., tablets, videos, and cell phones), affect children’s asking and answering of questions. In the first study, a convenience sample of preschoolers (N = 58; Mage= 52.7, SD = 4.04; 31 girls) were read a story by a live reader, a reader on video chat, or a reader on a prerecorded video. Results indicated that not only did children comprehend the story in all three conditions equally, but they also responded to the reader’s questions when they were asked through a tablet. The second study directly tested the role of questions in children’s learning, assessing whether toddlers learn novel words better through questions than declaratives. Results indicated that a convenience sample of children (N= 34; Mage = 26.03, SD = 3.64; 18 girls) learned the labels for objects taught through questions better than the labels for objects taught through declaratives. Importantly, objects were taught and tested over video. Even at 2 years of age, children actively answered questions in the video, both vocally and through pointing gestures. In the final study, the role of parental cell phone use in children’s and parents’ questioning was tested. While children (N = 57; Mage = 48.72 months, SD = 6.53; 28 girls; convenience sample) played with a novel toy, parents either completed a survey on their cell phones, completed it on paper, or remained undistracted. Results suggest that parents asked their children fewer information-seeking questions when they completed a survey on their cell phones than when they completed the same survey on paper, suggesting a unique effect of cell phones on questioning behaviors. The findings of these three studies suggest that simple practices and interventions may be used to improve parents’ and children’s question-asking and -answering. Limitations, such as the homogeneous, mid-to-high socioeconomic status convenience samples used in the studies, as well as the lack of naturalistic observations (i.e., all studies were conducted in a laboratory), should be considered. Future directions, such as exploring the effects of different types of media (e.g., book reading videos, different types of parental screen-based distractions) on children’s question-asking and learning are discussed.
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Keywords
Language, Literacy, Media, Play, Questions, Video chat