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Children’s academic motivation declines with grade, beginning in early elementary school, so a better understanding of young children’s motivation is needed. Measuring motivational constructs in children is a necessary start to this goal with a focus on children’s curiosity, mindset, and achievement goal orientations—all shown to be consistently related to academic success across developmental periods. In 212 6–10-year olds, factor analyses showed separate factors for each of the expected constructs. Curiosity positively related to growth mindset instability—but not malleability—beliefs, and mastery goal orientations, and achievement goal orientations (performance, mastery) were positively associated, though they did not relate to growth mindset beliefs. Disentangling the observed associations that diverge from the prior literature can help to identify promising future directions for supporting children’s motivation and learning. 

A student’s science identity has important implications for their persistence in science classes and success in STEM careers. Unfortunately, many marginalized students in the science field do not feel like scientists; thus, we need to understand ways in which we can help foster science identities in elementary education. Researchers surveyed 148 third- and fourth-grade students and their teachers across 10 public schools in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. to understand students’ science identity. A mixed methods approach, using a multi-level model and thematic coding of open-ended responses revealed that science curiosity, science self-efficacy, and teacher practices may be important factors to consider when examining students’ science identity development. Hands-on experiences that match students’ perceptions of what scientists do in the real world, positive affirmations like telling students they are scientists, and encouraging the process of doing science rather than needing to know all answers were common themes amongst students that felt high perceptions of science identity. Classroom practices and implications were explored. 

Structured Generative AI interactions have potential for scaffolding learning. This Scholarship of Teaching and Learning study analyzes 16 undergraduate students’ Feynman-style AI interactions (N=154) across a semester. Qualitative coding of the interactions shows mostly low-level student responses, but some evidence that prompt structure may can promote higher- level cognitive engagement. Results show GAI provides metacognitive support, and suggest the potential of GAI-supported Feynman reviews to provide interactive, personalized learning experiences that align with theories of cognitive engagement and metacognitive support for learning. 

Structured Generative AI interactions have potential for scaffolding learning. This Scholarship of Teaching and Learning study analyzes 16 undergraduate students’ Feynman-style AI interactions (N=154) across a semester. Qualitative coding of the interactions shows mostly low-level student responses, but some evidence that prompt structure may can promote higherlevel cognitive engagement. Results show GAI provides metacognitive support, and suggest the potential of GAI-supported Feynman reviews to provide interactive, personalized learning experiences that align with theories of cognitive engagement and metacognitive support for learning. 

This study explored differences in children’s information seeking in the two exploration tasks aligned with proposed curiosity frameworks. One task provided an open-ended unlimited information seeking design assessing the frequency of exploration attempts across similar options; the second was a constrained information seeking design with limits on how much could be explored, focusing instead on what children chose among varying levels of uncertainty. Children’s information seeking did not relate between the two tasks, and children give different explanations for their motivation for seeking information that aligned with the different designs; in the open-ended task children’s exploration was motivated by more superficial and perceptual features, while in the constrained task they described desiring information and mentioned uncertainty and mystery. Potential implications of the results are discussed. 

Dataset for paper Understanding Motivation in Early Childhood: Disentangling the Links Among Curiosity, Mindset, and Goals Abstract: Children’s academic motivation declines with grade, beginning in early elementary school, so a better understanding of young children’s motivation is needed. Measuring motivational constructs in children is a necessary start to this goal with a focus on children’s curiosity, mindset, and achievement goal orientations—all shown to be consistently related to academic success across developmental periods. In 212 6–10-year olds, factor analyses showed separate factors for each of the expected constructs. Curiosity positively related to growth mindset instability—but not malleability—beliefs, and mastery goal orientations, and achievement goal orientations (performance, mastery) were positively associated, though they did not relate to growth mindset beliefs. Disentangling the observed associations that diverge from the prior literature can help to identify promising future directions for supporting children’s motivation and learning. 

Curiosity is a universal characteristic of childhood that can motivate and direct attention during information-seeking to support knowledge development. Understanding the development of curiosity could inform practical applications to support children’s curiosity and learning across contexts, such as fostering curiosity-supportive environments at home and in schools. In this Review, we focus on the state component of curiosity, defined as information-seeking behaviour that is internally motivated in response to a specific question or gap in knowledge. We synthesize research on children’s curiosity, considering the distinction between internal and external curiosity and variation in curiosity across ages and contexts. On the basis of this research, we suggest several areas for future research.