The literature defines curiosity and interest, but it is not clear how interest can be generated, where interest is positioned in the learning process, and what the impact of interest is on cognitive and emotional development. This paper reports on a three-year, iterative design-based research project involving three separate cohorts totalling 57…

The aim of the Families Learning Across Boundaries Project (FamLAB) is to create an ecosystem that can enable and encourage young children's interest-driven learning across settings. With this in mind, the authors surveyed 407 professionals working in libraries--including librarians, media specialists, circulation managers, directors, and outreach…

Despite over three decades of legislation and initiatives designed to tackle the traditional gender divide in the science, technology and design fields, only a quarter of the registered architects in Australia are women. There are no statistics available for other design disciplines, with little known about why women choose design as a career path…

Investigates the influence of content knowledge on topic choice in children's writing. Finds that children have significantly more knowledge about topics they want to write about than about unwanted or teacher topics. Emphasizes the importance of topic self-selection, and the role knowledge plays in topic choice. (MM)

Interest is a powerful motivator; nonetheless, science educators often lack the necessary information to make use of the power of student-specific interests in the reform process of science curricula. This study suggests a novel methodology, which might be helpful in identifying such interests--using children's self-generated questions as an…

Cognitive, home, and family factors that theoretically could influence whether or not preschoolers' interests were focused on domains characterized by the acquisition of knowledge concerning object concepts (e.g., dinosaurs, horses) were assessed in a short-term longitudinal investigation of 211 4-year-olds. Boys were six times as likely as girls…

This paper reports a survey of children's interests at two ages. Data was obtained from a questionnaire administered to 200 grade 1 and 180 grade 7 boys and girls in ten different primary schools in the Perth, Australia area. Children were administered a 10-question questionnaire designed to measure leisure and academic interests. First grade…

Purpose: This study is part of a larger project, which aims to develop medicine education materials for teachers. The aim of the present study was to discover children's interests in medicines and teachers' opinions on what should be taught about medicines to children of different ages. Furthermore, teachers' opinions were assessed about the…

Questionnaires were distributed to 6,354 elementary school students participating in the Holt Basic Reading System Field Study. Primary students reported that their favorite activity is watching television; intermediate students, playing sports. Approximately 25% of the students did not have a pet; 46% reported having a dog; 15%, a cat. Almost 48%…

Approximately 100 national spelling bee finalists and their parents were surveyed concerning their early literacy experiences and spelling practices. The fourth-eighth grade spellers showed an early interest in language activities; passed through developmental spelling stages earlier than average; and mastered words via visual memory strategies,…