Is the Curious Child Universal? Examining the Frequency and Types of Questions Asked by Turkish Preschoolers’ from Middle-class and Low-income Families

The purpose of this study was three-fold: 1) to examine the frequency and types of questions asked by mother-child dyads from middle-class and low-income Turkish families during a storybook reading activity, and to see whether they change by SES and age 2) to examine the frequency and types of questions asked by Turkish preschoolers from middle-class and low-income families in a question elicitation task and to see whether they change by SES and age, 3) to investigate whether mother-child conversations, particularly mothers’ questions and explanations, help children acquire an “exploratory stance” and contribute to their learning from more knowledgeable others.I carried out three studies to examine children’s question-asking behavior. Study 1 examined the frequency and types of questions asked by 71 mother-child dyads (36 middle-class) during a storybook reading activity at home. The findings revealed no difference in the frequency and the types of mothers and children’s questions across age and SES groups. There was a strong positive association between mothers’ information-seeking questions and children’s information-seeking questions.Study 2 examined the frequency and the types of questions asked by Turkish preschoolers in a question-elicitation task about novel animals and objects to see whether children ask information-seeking questions and whether there were differences in the quantity and type of questions they asked depending on the scripted answers they received from the experimenter (informative vs. non-informative) across two experimental conditions. Seventy one children from Study 1 and 34 more children participated in this study (105 children; 55 middle-class) The findings indicated that children were more likely to ask questions when they received informative answers than non-informative answers. There were also significant SES differences; children from middle-class families asked more questions than children from low-income families. There were no age differences; 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds asked similar number of questions.Study 3 complemented Study 1 and 2 by examining whether mothers’ explanatory talk about improbable and impossible events was related to children’s judgments and explanations about similar events. The same participants from the first study participated in this study (71 mother-child dyads, 35 middle-class). Children first read a booklet with improbable and impossible events with their mothers and then participated in a child judgment task with the experimenter. There were no SES and age differences in mothers’ questions and explanations in the mother-child booklet task. In the child judgment task, children from low-income families judged improbable and impossible events to be possible more frequently than children from middle-class families, and provided more non-informative explanations for their judgments than children from middle-class families. Also, there was a negative association between mothers’ explanations-seeking questions and hypothetical explanations and children’s “yes, it is possible” judgments in the low-income sample. This finding indicates that in the low-income sample, mothers who questioned and speculated more about why improbable and impossible events can or cannot happen had children who judged these events as not possible more frequently.In sum, the present study provided evidence for the universal and socioculturally variable features of children’s question-asking behavior across two SES groups in the Turkish cultural context. It also highlighted the importance of investigating mother-child conversations in relation to children’s question-asking behavior

Preschoolers in Belarus and Turkey accept an adult’s counter-intuitive claim and do not spontaneously seek evidence to test that claim

When presented with a claim that contradicts their intuitions, do children seize opportunities to empirically verify such claims or do they simply acquiesce to what they have been told? To answer this question, we conducted a replication of Ronfard, Chen, and Harris (2018, conducted in the People’s Republic of China) in two countries with distinct religious and political histories (Study 1: Belarus, N = 74; Study 2: Turkey, N = 79). Preschool children were presented with five, different-sized Russian dolls and asked to indicate the heaviest doll. All children selected the biggest doll. Half of the children then heard a (false) claim (i.e., that the smallest doll was the heaviest), contradicting their initial intuition. The remaining children heard a (true) claim (i.e., that the biggest doll was the heaviest), confirming their initial intuition. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers typically endorsed the experimenter’s claim no matter whether it had contradicted or confirmed their initial intuition. Next, the experimenter left the room, giving children an opportunity to check the experimenter’s claim by picking up the relevant dolls. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers rarely explored the dolls, regardless of the type of testimony they received and continued to endorse the counter-intuitive testimony they received. Furthermore, in Study 2, Turkish preschoolers continued to endorse smallest = heaviest even when doing so could have cost them a large reward. In sum, across two different cultural contexts, preschool children endorsed a counter-intuitive claim and did not spontaneously seek evidence to test it. These results confirm and extend those of Ronfard et al. (2018)

Children’s Questions and Teachers’ Responses about the COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkey and the United States

With the resumption of face-to-face classes in schools, children have begun to ask questions about the COVID-19 outbreak not only to parents but also to teachers. However, there has not been any research examining children’s questions and teachers’ responses about the Covid-19 pandemic. The study examined 3-12-year-old children’s questions and teachers’ responses about the Covid-19 pandemic in two sociocultural contexts: Turkey and the United States. A total of 119 teachers from Turkey and 95 teachers from the United States participated in the study. Teachers completed an online survey consisting of a demographic form and a questionnaire asking them to report three questions about Covid-19 asked by children in their classrooms and their responses to these questions. We analyzed children’s questions and teachers’ responses for their type and content. We also examined whether demographic factors were associated with children’s questions and teachers’ responses. Consistent with the literature, children in the Turkish sample asked fewer explanation-seeking (i.e., why/how) questions than children in the US sample. Children asked questions about virus and precautions to teachers and teachers responded to children’s questions realistically in both cultures. We discuss these findings in relation to similarities and differences across cultures in children’s question-asking behavior when acquiring knowledge