Do children’s questions help cognitive development?
[mme_highlight] Children ask a lot of questions, everyday. Evidence from studies has suggested that preschoolers’ questions may play an important role in cognitive development. In fact, this may be explained because when a question is asked the goal is to elicit specific pieces of information from hearers. In this process, children literally build knowledge.[/mme_highlight]
Children ask a lot of questions, everyday. Evidence from studies has suggested that preschoolers’ questions may play an important role in cognitive development. In fact, this may be explained because when a question is asked the goal is to elicit specific pieces of information from hearers, who are expected to provide the desired information. Hence, when children encounter a problem or inconsistency, asking a question allows them to get the targeted information at the right time. In this process, children literally build knowledge.
Nevertheless, while the assumption that the ability to ask questions is an efficient mechanism for cognitive development is largely defunded, the actual role of children’s questions in cognitive development has been poorly studied.
Is there a purpose in children’s questions?
No doubt children ask lots of questions everyday each one focusing on some particular information. However, how can we know that children do that with the specific purpose of gathering that particular information? On the other hand, most of their questions are answered, but how can we know they use they can use the information with success?
A study conducted by Michelle M. Couinard addressed these questions. 67 children aged 4-5 years were included. After a demonstration trial, children were shown a box, along with two pictures of different objects. They were told that the box contained one of the two objects. In group 1 (experimental), children were told that the goal of the game was to guess what was hidden in the box; they were allowed to do any desired questions.
On the contrary, children in the control group were told the goal of the game was to guess what was hidden in the box, but they could not ask any questions. The objects were matched in pairs, which resulted in three levels of similarity within the objects of a pair, low, moderate and high.
It is important to highlight that this experimental activity involve 3 different and crucial stages:
- Correctly assess the situation (one of two objects is hidden).
- Pose an adequate question to differentiate between the two.
- Use the information obtained with the question to correctly identify the hidden object.
How do children take advantage of asking questions?
Concerning the study described above, we wonder if children could pose the adequate questions to distinguish the items. For instance, if a spoon and a fork were presented and then one of them was hidden, an inadequate question would be: “Is it used to eat?” as both are. Interestingly, but maybe not surprising, results have shown that children who were allowed to ask questions performed significantly better at identifying the hidden object than children who could not pose questions.
Results are presented in the box below. This can be interpreted as an indicator that a change has been operated in the children’s knowledge state.
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Can children use questions to successfully identify a hidden object?
- Number of items correctly identified by 4-year-olds:
- Number of items correctly identified by 5-year-olds:
Experimental group (allowed to do questions): 5
Control group (not allowed to do questions): 3.4
(F= 10.415, p<0.03)
Experimental group (allowed to do questions): 5.2
Control group (not allowed to do questions): 3.2
(F= 18.16, p<0.000)
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How adequate are children’s questions?
Again concerning the study conducted by Michelle M. Couinard, it is important the use of questions by children, but also their adequacy in order to fill the missing gap and, this way, add new information to children’s knowledge. A total of 267 questions were asked by children in this study, the majority of which were adequate to distinguish between the two objects, as the box below shows.
[mme_databox]
Percent of questions that appropriately differentiate between the 2 possible hidden items
- 4-year-olds: 91% (x2=91.86; p<0.000)
- 5-year-olds: 90% (x2=80.32; p<0.000)
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What information do children ask about to solve a problem?
Evidence suggests that children can use their previously formed knowledge structures to generate questions that, ultimately, change the state of their knowledge in a way that allows them to solve a problem.
The questions children asked in order to identify the hidden object fell into three categories: object function, object parts and properties, whose percentages are presented in the box below.
[mme_databox]
Percent of questions that appropriately differentiate between the 2 possible hidden items
- 4-year-olds:
- 5-year-olds:
Object function: 43%
Object parts: 34%
Object properties: 23%
Object function: 43%
Object parts: 37%
Object properties: 20%
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Summary and Recommendations
- Children’s questions are recognized as a powerful tool for children to gather needed information which allows them to learn about the world and solve problems.
- In order to gather needed information, children can generate adequate questions with a specific purpose.
- Children can also use the information obtained with questions to successful solve problems or fill gaps.
- In the process of asking questions, children literally build knowledge.
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References
- Do children’s questions change their knowledge state? (2007).Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.
- Dorothé Salomo, Elena Lieven and Michael Tomasello (2013). Children’s ability to answer different types of questions. Journal of Child Language, 40, pp 469-491.
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