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Children’s beliefs about the contribution of effort and ability to success and failure shape their decisions to persist or give up on challenging tasks, with consequences for their academic success. But how do children learn about the concept of “challenge”? Prior work has shown that parents’ verbal responses to success and failure shape children’s motivational beliefs. In this study, we explore another type of talk - parent and child talk about difficulty - which could contribute to children’s motivational beliefs. We performed secondary analyses of two observational studies of parent-child interactions in the United States (Boston and Philadelphia) from age 3 to 4th grade (Study 1, 51% girls, 65.5% White, at least 43.2% below Federal poverty line) and at 1st grade (Study 2, 54% girls, 72% White, family income-to-needs ratio M(SD) = 4.41(2.95)) to identify talk about difficulty, characterize the content of those statements, and assess whether task context, child and parent gender, child age, and other parent motivational talk were associated with quantity of child and parent difficulty talk. We found that many families did discuss difficulty, with variation among families. Parents and children tended to use general statements to talk about difficulty (e.g., “That was hard!”), and task context affected child and parent difficulty talk. In the NICHD-SECCYD dataset, mothers’ highlighting how task features contributed to task difficulty was positively correlated with their process praise, suggesting that this talk could be motivationally relevant.
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Fortitude in frustration, failure: Exploring emotional responses within an at-home elementary engineering program
Research on social, emotional, and academic development of children often notes the critical role of parents. Yet, how parents perceive and engage with children’s reactions to difficulty and perceived failure, to then shape their perspective and engagement with learning remains under investigated. The current study explored children and parents’ perceptions of and reactions to frustration and failure within an out-of-school, home-based engineering program. Specifically, we asked 1) How was failure perceived by participating families? and 2) What was the subsequent action/reaction to that failure? Data were derived from post-program interviews with children and parents who participated in a home-based, elementary engineering program involving take-home kits and self-identified engineering projects. Findings derived from descriptive qualitative methods and thematic analysis illustrated development of parent thinking around failure and frustration, both within themselves and their reactions to seeing such emotions in their children. Analysis further revealed how such emotions emerge within their children and impact their experiences. These findings shed light on ways child-parent engagement and the tactics employed by parents may influence a child’s perseverance and willingness to work through difficulty. This research represents an entry point for investigating how parents perceive and react to failures and challenges, and how these reactions shape their communication around failure with their children. Such parental reactions and communication may shape children’s mindset development, perspectives, and engagement. Implications for family engagement and influence on children’s learning through academic emotions in STEM and engineering are discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1759314
- PAR ID:
- 10441050
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Society for Engineering Education
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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IntroductionEarly informal learning experiences are essential for sparking long-term interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). In a prior study, we found more promising parent involvement outcomes when families of young children were provided with STEM family education events along with home STEM activity kits compared to providing workshops alone. This study was a conceptual replication using the same program—Teaching Together STEM—to deliver educational workshops plus home activity kits; however, we varied the delivery method by using virtual “funshops” to evaluate if parents perceived this modality as feasible and useful. MethodsMuseum informal science educators introduced four units via virtual video chat sessions linked to 12 hands-on STEM activities that were mailed to families randomly assigned to the treatment group. Half of the families were assigned to a waitlist control group that received a portion of the virtual program after the posttest. Participants included 60 families with children aged 3 to 5 years from diverse linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds. ResultsOur results indicate no significant group differences in the primary outcome of parents’ involvement in informal STEM but a small, positive effect size (ES = 0.18) that was similar in magnitude to the prior, in-person study. Although parents mostly perceived the remote delivery as convenient and the materials as engaging for their child, there were no significant program impacts on children’s general science interests (ES = −0.19). DiscussionDespite the convenience, parents reported time was a barrier to doing STEM activities at home. Parents with lower education levels were less likely to attend, suggesting virtual approaches are not sufficient for ensuring broad access to family engagement programs for populations underrepresented in STEM.more » « less
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