Julie Vaisarova’s research while affiliated with Arizona State University and other places

Despite the vital role of curiosity-driven exploration in learning, our understanding of how to enhance children’s curiosity remains limited. Here, we tested whether hearing a strategic curiosity story with curiosity-promoting themes (e.g., strategically approaching uncertainty, adapting flexibly to new information) versus a control story with traditional pedagogical themes (e.g., following rules, learning from others) would influence children’s strategic exploration across two cultures. Three- to 6-year-olds from the United States (N = 138) and Turkey (N = 88) were randomly assigned to hear one of these stories over Zoom, before playing a game in which they searched for sea creatures across five fish tanks. All tanks had the same number of hiding spots but varied in the number of creatures they contained. Time was limited and children could not return to prior tanks, pushing them to allocate search effort strategically. Results indicated that across both countries, children in the strategic curiosity condition explored the virtual “aquarium” more broadly; they moved through tanks more rapidly than children in the control condition and were more likely to explore all five tanks before time ran out. Children in the strategic curiosity condition also showed relatively more strategic search, adapting their search based on the likelihood of finding creatures in each tank. While further research is needed to pinpoint which elements of our stories produced differences in search behavior and whether they did so by enhancing or inhibiting children’s strategic exploration, storybooks appear to be a promising method for shaping children’s exploration across multiple countries.

Ivancovsky et al.'s Novelty-Seeking Model suggests several mechanisms that might underlie developmental change in creativity and curiosity. We discuss how these implications both do and do not align with extant developmental findings, suggest two further elements that can provide a more complete developmental account, and discuss current methodological barriers to formulating an integrated developmental model of curiosity and creativity.

Parenting is one of the primary influences on child development. There is extensive research investigating the association between parenting style and child outcome, from preschool to college years, and in different countries and cultures. This article will review the pertinent literature available on this topic to investigate which aspects of child development are influenced by different parenting styles, and which parenting style is associated with best outcomes. A significant number of studies regarding parenting strategies and their effect demonstrate that parenting style directly influences children’s psychosocial development and outcome. Multiple articles published across the world found that the authoritative parenting style was associated with better overall outcome, higher emotional regulation and lower behavioral problems than any other type of parenting. Outcomes such as school achievement, resilience, social competence, adjustment and prosocial behavior were evaluated in the studies we reviewed; best scores were associated with the authoritative parenting style. Clear evidence supports this parenting style and the two dimensions of parenting (warmth and responsiveness) as the most effective strategies in raising children to become competent, successful, and happy adults. Therefore, most experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), recommend the authoritative parenting style, as proven to be strongly associated with positive behavioral outcomes, and good mental health in children and adolescents.

Although research suggests that the use of child-initiated vs. teacher-directed instructional practices in early childhood education has implications for learning and development, the precise nature of these effects remains unclear. Using data from the Midwest Child-Parent Center (CPC) Expansion Project, the present study examined the possibility that a blend of child- and teacher-directed practices best promotes school readiness among preschoolers experiencing high levels of sociodemographic risk and explored whether the optimal blend varies based on child characteristics. Sixty-two CPC preschool teachers reported their instructional practices throughout the year, using a newly developed questionnaire—the Classroom Activity Report (CAR). The average reported proportion of child-initiated instruction was examined in relation to students’ end-of-year performance on a routine school readiness assessment (N = 1289). Although there was no main effect of child-initiated instruction on school readiness, there was a significant interaction between instruction and student age. Four-year-olds’ school readiness generally improved as the proportion of child-initiated time increased, while 3-year-olds showed a U-shaped pattern. The present findings add to the evidence that child-initiated instruction might support preschoolers’ school readiness, although they also suggest this relation may not always be linear. They also point to the importance of examining instructional strategies in relation to student characteristics, in order to tailor strategies to the student population. The CAR has potential as a brief, practical measurement tool that can support program monitoring and professional development.

Background : Research with adults suggests that executive function (EF) might play a role in the development of divergent thinking (DT), a key component of creativity, by helping children override canonical knowledge. Procedure : We examined this possibility in two experiments, by manipulating the familiarity of objects used in the Alternate Uses test of DT both between-participants (Experiment 1: N=53 4-year-olds and 50 6-year-olds) and within-participants (Experiment 2: N=74 5-year-olds). Findings : We found evidence that younger children generated more and/or more original ideas for novel than familiar objects. However, this effect disappeared with age and did not depend on child EF. Further, EF was inversely associated with DT, controlling for age, intelligence, and income. Significance : These results call into question a simple executive account of children's DT and suggest that, among predominantly White, socioeconomically advantaged 4-6-year-olds, divergent idea-generation might be a primarily bottom-up process that can be hindered by top-down thinking.