UCLA

Children’s ability to use higher-order thinking and learn complex, higher-order concepts is crucial for academic and later employment success. One form of higher-order thinking is transfer, which occurs when learning in one context affects learning in another. Many science concepts require higher-order thinking and relational reasoning so understanding transfer in this domain is particularly valuable in understanding how children learn these concepts. The present studies consider how children’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) podcasts, digital audio programs that aim to engage children with STEM topics, and parent-child conversation while listening to podcasts support children’s learning and transfer. Children’s podcasts are a unique unimodal modality because they include features like conversation, description, and sound effects to encourage audio engagement. However, not much is known about how children learn from podcasts and the factors that could facilitate children’s transfer of science concepts presented in podcasts. Study 1 examined whether children learn from podcasts, and if supporting visual information affected their learning. Participants were 69 children between 7- and 8-years-old who listened (or listened and viewed related images) to an 11-minute science podcast about the water cycle and answered recall and transfer questions. Results from this study revealed no effect of modality on children’s learning, and children in both audio and audiovisual conditions performed above chance on transfer questions. Using a semantic textual similarity analysis, we showed that children in the audiovisual condition did not incorporate visual information in their description of concepts. These results highlight the value of podcasts as a unimodal context that could benefit higher-order concept learning. Study 2 investigated the effect of parent-child conversation while listening to a podcast on children’s learning and transfer. Participants were 61 parent-child dyads who listened to an 11-minute science podcast about the water cycle together. Dyads were randomly assigned into one of three conditions in which parents received conversation cards that either prompted general conversation (control), open-ended questions about the water cycle (water cycle questions), or open-ended questions to evoke children’s prior knowledge and experience (prior knowledge questions). Results revealed interesting parent-child conversation patterns while listening to the podcast. An effect of conversation cards on parents’ use of prior knowledge connections and an effect of conversation cards on children’s recall of content presented in the podcast, but not children’s generalization of content presented in the podcast, were found. The results provide a first look at parent-child conversation when listening to a podcast and highlight the need for additional research examining the effects of various characteristics of parent-child conversation on children’s recall and transfer of science concepts presented in podcasts. Taken together, these two studies aimed to answer if STEM podcasts and parent-child listening contexts supported children’s higher-order concept learning. Overall, these results show that children learn higher-order concepts from podcasts and highlight effects of parent-child interactions while listening to podcasts together. These results are informative for existing theories on learning from media and media engagement and have implications for families and podcast creators dedicated to supporting children’s engagement with and learning from podcasts.