Abstract:

Question asking is essential for learning in childhood. But options for possible questions are nearly infinite. We investigate whether causal knowledge might serve as a guiding constraint. Children (5–7 years old, N= 144, 51% female, 49% White, data collected 2022–2024) heard about an event and asked questions to try to identify its cause. Even the youngest children readily deployed their real-world causal knowledge to select better questions (Experiment 1) and generate their own questions from scratch (Experiment 2). Children’s grasp of efficient question-asking improved with age. This study provides initial evidence that young learners successfully employ conceptual knowledge to ask good questions within a defined information search problem, and provides insight into how learners arrive at relevant ideas given nearly infinite possibilities.

Past Presentations