Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Promoting curiosity may support learning, but there is little research assessing effective methods of promoting curiosity in children. Framing a lesson using questions to make uncertainty salient may be one such method. This study examined whether question framing led to higher self-reported and demonstrated curiosity compared to a statement-framing. Children (age 7-8, N = 110 after exclusions) were randomly assigned to hear a science activity introduced using either statements or a question about what they could learn, or they generated their own question about what could be learned. Children then engaged in exploration to learn. Curiosity was assessed using self-report before and after the exploration activity, and time exploring and number of explorations during the task. There were no differences across conditions, but children's self-reported curiosity before exploration predicted their behavioral curiosity, supporting the use of children's self-reported curiosity in future research. Possible explanations for the results are discussed.