The Cultural & Developmental Niche of Religious Cognitions: Educational Implications of the Cognitive Science of Religion

This chapter outlines how cultural practices support the development of both intuitive and explicit cognitive processes relevant to religious thinking. Cultural beliefs influence children’s religious thinking at a variety of levels. Parents and educators guide children’s learning of religious concepts and beliefs through direct instruction about religious doctrines, through guided participation in shared religious activities such as prayer and rituals, and through indirect information about adults’ own intuitions about religion that appear unintentionally in adults’ language use. Each of these processes are guided by adults’ ethnotheories about where, how, and when to engage children in religious thinking and practices

Informant effort expenditure impacts young children’s learning, eye gaze, andtrust

Abstract: Recent research has suggested informant trust is an important factor in preschoolers’ observational learn-ing. This poster will present data from an ongoing study examining if 3.5- to 6.5-year-old children (current n=24) relateperceptions of effort and trust. Children watched two informants solving problems using different solutions, exerting eitherhigh or low effort. Children’s eye gaze, trust of each informant, and learning from informants were measured. There were nosignificant differences in trust of the two informants, but children were significantly more likely to learn the solution demon-strated by the high effort informant, t(23) = 2.161, p = 0.041. High effort informant trust was also significantly related totime spent looking at the high effort informant, r = 0.675, p < 0.01. These findings indicate children are more likely to watchinformants who exert high effort and are more likely to use those solutions when faced with a novel problem

The Differences in STEM Feelings and Interest Between Boys and Girls

Children are exposed to many areas of interest and careers through accessible media and technologicaldevices. Research has shown that STEM careers are lacking in female representation. Accordingto the National Science Foundation, women only represented 28% of individuals in science andengineering occupations in 2010 (NSF 2014). Exposure to STEM careers in early childhood maybe an underlying cause of this underrepresentation; thus considering young children’s feelings andinterest in STEM is important for nurturing students to enter STEM fields. Children between ages3.61 to 7.21 years (N = 79) were asked about their interests in STEM activities and feelings abouta STEM task before and after playing a STEM application. Children reported decreased levels ofSTEM interest from pretest to posttest, whereas children’s self-efficacy for a STEM activity did notsignificantly differ from pretest to posttest. The results suggest that short-term exposure to a STEMapplication did not increase children’s STEM interest and self-efficacy toward STEM, as measuredby children’s verbal report