Choosing to learn: Investigating the factors that drive preschoolers' exploration

选择学习：调查推动学龄前儿童探索的因素

• 批准号: 1627971
• 负责人: Elizabeth Bonawitz
• 金额: $ 64.52万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University Newark
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-15 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1627971&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Choosing; learn; Investigating; factors; drive

Children in the earliest stages of life behave like intuitive scientists - observing the world, forming theories about how the world works, predicting possible consequences of their theories, and intervening to test their predictions. What is not clear is how these "intuitive scientists" go about deciding when and which exploration opportunities to pursue. This research investigates whether children are motivated to explore when there is high expectation in "Information Gain" i.e., "the degree to which a learner can expect to update her beliefs" and examines whether exploration is sensitive to variation in factors that will influence information gain. Identifying the factors that influence efficient active learning in early childhood is important because it could lead to understanding broader developmental differences in drive for learning, with direct consequences for the development of informal and formal educational practices. Extending these findings to under-represented populations may help us to develop early interventions that improve the lives of these populations.Several sets of studies are planned. One set will examine whether children track probability information and are able to use expected reward to drive decisions. The second set of studies investigate whether children are motivated to explore an object longer and more variably when they believe learning about it will be more difficult (have higher information gain). The remaining experiments examine children's choices between two uncertain outcomes. One set of studies assess whether children consider the effects of evidence prior to exploring events with potential information gain. The second set of studies looks at information gain in the context of children's beliefs - specifically, whether children who are transitioning between beliefs are more motivated (as compared to children who are more confidently rooted in their current beliefs) to seek information that will help them learn.

生活中最早的孩子表现得像直觉科学家 - 观察世界，形成有关世界如何运作的理论，预测其理论的可能后果，并干预以测试他们的预测。尚不清楚这些“直觉科学家”如何决定何时以及探索哪些机会。这项研究调查了儿童是否有动力去探索“信息收益”，即学习者可以期望更新自己的信念的程度，并检查探索是否对影响信息增益的因素的变化敏感。确定在幼儿期影响有效的积极学习的因素很重要，因为它可能会导致了解学习驱动力的更广泛的发展差异，这对发展非正式和正式教育实践的发展有直接的影响。将这些发现扩展到代表性不足的人群可能有助于我们制定改善这些人群生活的早期干预措施。一组将检查孩子是否跟踪概率信息并能够使用预期的奖励来推动决策。第二组研究调查了儿童在相信学习时是否会更长，更可变地探索对象会更加困难（具有更高的信息增益）。其余的实验检查了两个不确定结果之间的儿童选择。一组研究评估儿童是否在探索潜在信息增益的事件之前是否考虑证据的影响。第二组研究着眼于儿童信仰的情况，特别是，在信仰之间过渡的孩子是否更有动力（与更自信地植根于当前信仰的孩子相比），以寻求帮助他们学习的信息。