ERIC Number: EJ1455465
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Jan
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-3920
EISSN: EISSN-1467-8624
Exploration in 4-Year-Old Children Is Guided by Learning Progress and Novelty
Child Development, v96 n1 p192-202 2025
Humans are driven by an intrinsic motivation to learn, but the developmental origins of curiosity-driven exploration remain unclear. We investigated the computational principles guiding 4-year-old children's exploration during a touchscreen game (N = 102, F = 49, M = 53, primarily white and middle-class, data collected in the Netherlands from 2021-2023). Children guessed the location of characters that were hiding following predictable (yet noisy) patterns. Children could freely switch characters, which allowed us to quantify "when" they decided to explore something different and "what" they chose to explore. Bayesian modeling of their responses revealed that children selected activities that were more novel and offered greater learning progress (LP). Moreover, children's interest in making LP correlated with better learning performance. These findings highlight the importance of novelty and LP in guiding children's exploration.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Young Children, Learning Motivation, Discovery Learning, Gamification, Bayesian Statistics, Novelty (Stimulus Dimension)
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Netherlands
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Data File: URL: https://osf.io/tsv6q/?view_only=199d7632237d433f9cb11a393eeca9f2