Promoting children’s learning and transfer across informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning experiences

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 175 (2018) 80–95

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Journal of Experimental Child Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

Promoting children’s learning and transfer across informal science, technology, engineering, and mathematics learning experiences Maria Marcus a,⇑, Catherine A. Haden a, David H. Uttal b a b

Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL 60660, USA Department of Psychology and School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 7 December 2017 Revised 12 May 2018

Keywords: STEM learning Transfer of knowledge Parent–child conversations

a b s t r a c t This study investigated ways to support young children’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning and transfer of knowledge across informal learning experiences in a museum. Participants were 64 4- to 8-year-old children (Mage = 6.55 years, SD = 1.44) and their parents. Families were observed working together to solve one engineering problem, and then immediately afterward children worked on their own to solve a second engineering problem. At the outset of the problemsolving activities, families were randomly assigned to receive engineering instructions, transfer instructions, both engineering and transfer instructions, or no instructions. Families who received engineering instructions—either alone or in combination with the transfer instructions—demonstrated greater understanding and use of the engineering principle of bracing compared with those who received only transfer instructions. Moreover, older children who received both engineering and transfer instructions were more successful when working on their own to solve a perceptually different engineering problem compared with older children who received only one set of instructions or no instructions. Implications of the work for developmental and learning science research and informal education practice are discussed. Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Marcus). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2018.06.003 0022-0965/Ó 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Introduction Informal learning experiences can play an important role in the development of young children’s interest in and knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM; e.g., Bell, Lewenstein, Shouse, & Feder, 2009; National Science Board [NSB], 2010; Sobel & Jipson, 2016). Children spend less than 20% of their waking hours in schools (Osborne & Dillon, 2007; Stevens, 2013), and much STEM learning occurs outside of school (Bell et al., 2009; Falk & Dierking, 2010). Informal educational settings, such as botanical gardens, planetariums, and museums, provide opportunities to engage in STEM learning and scientific discovery (Ash, 2002; Bell et al., 2009; Callanan & Jipson, 2001; Eberbach & Crowley, 2017; Palmquist & Crowley, 2007). Moreover, researchers have found that participation in informal science activities fosters children’s scientific reasoning abilities and their commitment to science learning (Bell et al., 2009; Gerber, Cavallo, & Marek, 2001; NSB, 2010). The success of these activities depends critically on whether children are able to use what they learn in these informal settings and apply the knowledge in new situations. In other words, children need to learn in ways that can enable knowledge transfer across problems, settings, and time (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Klahr & Chen, 2011). In this study, we investigated conditions that can support young children’s learning and transfer across hands-on STEM problem-solving activities in a museum. Transfer of knowledge Previous research suggests that even short-term transfer from one problem-solving activity to another can be difficult and depends to a considerable extent on the conditions under which learning occurs (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). The knowledge transfer literature is replete with studies showing that children and adults fail to apply acquired knowledge across relatively similar problem situations, even when they are presented in the same laboratory setting after only short delays (e.g., Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999; Gick & Holyoak, 1980, 1987; Lave, 1988; Thorndike, 1927). Nevertheless, other studies point to learning conditions that can promote successful transfer of knowledge. For example, increasing the degree of superficial similarity (e.g., objects and their properties) or structural similarity (e.g., underlying relations) between initial and transfer problems increases the likelihood of transfer for children as young as 4 or 5 years. When mapping relations between problems is called for, children and adults benefit from hints to use what was learned in one problem to solve another problem (Brown, Kane, & Echols, 1986; Gick & Holyoak, 1980; Holyoak, Junn, & Billman, 1984). Other studies document age differences in learning and transfer that increase as the transfer gap (e.g., problem similarity, delay interval) widens (e.g., Barnett & Ceci, 2002; Chen & Klahr, 2008; Chen, Mo, & Honomichl, 2004). Compared with younger children, older children seem to be governed less by surface commonalities across problems. They seem to rely less on explicit hints pointing out the usefulness of prior problems and are more capable of reflecting on problem solutions to look for and extract general rules across problems (Brown & Kane, 1988; Brown et al., 1986). Additional work shows that when younger and older children learn in an initial problem to the same extent, they can demonstrate comparable transfer (e.g., Brown et al., 1986; Crowley & Siegler, 1999). Furthermore, studies show that conditions that prompt young children to talk about similarities across problems, or explicitly tell them to look for problem similarity, can positively affect learning and transfer (e.g., Brown & Kane, 1988; Chen & Klahr, 2008). Much of the research on transfer, including the work just reviewed, has involved solving analogy problems presented as stories in laboratory settings. Especially for children, transfer may be more likely in real-life settings when what is learned are principles and practices to solve problems grounded in hands-on activities. As Bransford and Schwartz (1999) suggested, in most laboratory studies of transfer learning is sequestered so that the learner is kept away from information that might influence the learning process. But outside the laboratory, learning is rarely sequestered; people often make use of information in the physical and social environments that may make them better prepared for future learning and transfer (Bransford et al., 1999; Zimmerman, Reeve, & Bell, 2009). This analysis suggests that it is important to take into account the learning context, including the ways in which problems and information are presented and the conversations children have with adult caregivers, when considering what might support children’s learning and transfer of knowledge.

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Parent–child conversations Parent–child conversations can be critical for learning and transfer of knowledge. This idea is rooted in sociocultural theory as articulated by Vygotsky (1978), who argued that children learn through socially structured activities and conversational interactions with others. It also finds support in the empirical literature demonstrating that parent–child conversations during events are related to children’s understanding and subsequent reporting of these events (e.g., Haden, Ornstein, Eckerman, & Didow, 2001; Hedrick, San Souci, Haden, & Ornstein, 2009; McGuigan & Salmon, 2006; Tessler & Nelson, 1994). Other research on children’s STEM learning in museums further suggests that a combination of hands-on activities and parent–child conversations can promote learning (Bell et al., 2009; Crowley, Callanan, Jipson, et al., 2001; Tessler & Nelson, 1994) and transfer (e.g., Jant, Haden, Uttal, & Babcock, 2014; Marcus, Haden, & Uttal, 2017). Furthermore, adults’ talk about STEM is positively associated with children’s learning about STEM (e.g., Gentner et al., 2016; Gunderson & Levine, 2011; Loewenstein & Gentner, 2005; Pruden, Levine, & Huttenlocher, 2011). Gentner et al. (2016), for example, found that children whose parents used terms referring to diagonal bracing (e.g., angle, brace, cross-beam, diagonal) during a joint construction project had children who were subsequently better able to repair a wobbly building than children whose parents did not. Engineering learning Prior work speaks to the limited understanding young children may have of key engineering principles such as structural integrity and cross-bracing (e.g., Cunningham, Lachapelle, & LindgrenStreicher, 2005; Davis, Ginns, & McRobbie, 2002; Gustafson, Rowell, & Rose, 1999; Knight & Cunningham, 2004). For example, Marcus et al. (2017) presented 5- and 6-year-olds with three skyscrapers made out of drinking straws and tape and asked the children to choose which one was the sturdiest and which one was the wobbliest. The children performed at chance in making these selections, and when asked they were more likely to provide incorrect explanations than correct ones for their choices. Furthermore, when suggestions for how to fix the structures were elicited, these young children were more likely to provide ideas that were inconsistent with engineering principles (e.g., ‘‘Add more straws”) than ideas that were consistent with them (e.g., ‘‘Include triangles”). Likewise, Davis et al. (2002) asked 6- to 13-year-olds to suggest ways in which to stabilize a wobbly bridge made out of wood. Older children offered ideas consistent with engineering principles, such as bracing, whereas younger children made suggestions that were not, such as hammering the nails of the bridge or cementing its pylons to make it more stable. Providing children and their families with engineering information can lead to better performance when building structures and increase talk about STEM. For example, Haden and colleagues (Benjamin, Haden, & Wilkerson, 2010; Haden et al., 2014; Marcus et al., 2017) found that families who receive information about how to build sturdy structures construct ones that are more stable than families who do not receive engineering information prior to building. Children who receive engineering information talk more about engineering (Benjamin et al., 2010) and STEM (Haden et al., 2014) when they are asked to report what they learned compared with those who do not receive such information. When children’s recall of the exhibit experiences is assessed, the provision of engineering information prior to building in the exhibit is also linked to greater reporting of science and engineering information by children weeks after the museum visit (Benjamin et al., 2010; Marcus et al., 2017). The current study In this study, all families worked together on the first engineering problem, which involved stabilizing a wobbly skyscraper. Before work began on the first structure, we provided half of the sample with the opportunity to engage with a hands-on permanent exhibit display (see Fig. 1), where we demonstrated the engineering principle of diagonal bracing. Because this exhibit display was made of different materials than those that families would work with, children and families in the engineering instructions condition needed to apply the principle they had just seen demonstrated with one set of materials to work to fix structures that were built with other materials.

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Fig. 1. Permanent exhibit display used to provide the engineering instructions.

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We hypothesized that, compared with families who received no instructions, families who were provided with information that could promote the engineering practice of bracing would successfully solve the first engineering problem by implementing this principle. Given the importance of parent– child conversations for learning, we also examined whether providing families with engineering information might lead to more talk about science process (planning, hypothesis testing), technology (labeling of building materials, talking about function), engineering (bracing, structural integrity), and mathematics (length, quantity) compared with families who did not receive engineering information. A second engineering problem, presented immediately after the first one, involved the child or children working alone to fix a wobbly bridge. Prior to working on the skyscraper, half of the participants were shown the wobbly bridge. They were told that the children would need to stabilize the second structure on their own, without the help of the parents, after the families finished stabilizing the first structure together. These transfer instructions drew explicit attention to the problem of transfer: what is learned from solving the first problem could be used to solve the second problem. Our measurement of the use of bracing to fix the structures captured the application of acquired information about the engineering principle to solve the fairly similar problems (wobbly skyscraper and wobbly bridge) in the exhibit. Moreover, our analyses of the parent–child conversations explored ways in which these interactions might elaborate knowledge and support learning to help children apply what they learned. The transfer instructions in combination with the engineering instructions might be especially important in prompting family engagement in the first problem-solving activity in ways that can prepare children to transfer. In this way, our work considered transfer in the classic sense of application of concepts and strategies across problem situations (e.g., Chen & Klahr, 2008) and transfer as preparation (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). We hypothesized that the combination of engineering and transfer instructions would result in the most talk among families about science process, technology, engineering, and mathematics during the family problem-solving task. Furthermore, children from families who received both engineering and transfer instructions were expected to be more successful at stabilizing the second structure when working on their own compared with children from families who did not receive the engineering and transfer instructions. The study included children who ranged in age from 4 to 8 years, and we explored how the effects of the two types of instructions—engineering and transfer—might differ by child age. Based on the literature on transfer, we hypothesized that, compared with younger children, older children would benefit more from the instructions and, thus, would be more successful at applying the engineering principle across problems. Method Participants Participants were 64 4- to 8-year-old children (Mage = 6.55 years, SD = 1.44) and their parents. They were recruited from the Skyline exhibit at Chicago Children’s Museum. Parents reported that 67% of the children were Caucasian, 11% African American, 6% Hispanic, 9% Asian, and 5% mixed race/ethnicity (race/ethnicity information was missing for 2%). 80% of the children’s mothers and 63% of fathers held a bachelor’s degree or higher level of education. Procedure After providing informed consent, families were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: engineering instructions, transfer instructions, engineering + transfer instructions, or no instructions/control. There were equal numbers of boys and girls in each condition. Engineering instructions Families who received engineering instructions were provided with the opportunity to experiment with a key engineering principle—bracing—prior to solving the two engineering problems. Families were taken to a permanent exhibit display (Fig. 1), which features a wooden square with a middle piece that can be connected either horizontally or diagonally with a metal bolt. Children first were

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shown that the wooden square was very wobbly. They then were asked where to connect its middle piece in order to stop it from wobbling. The researcher then connected the piece as the children suggested. Next, families were shown that connecting the middle piece diagonally stopped the square from wobbling and were also explicitly told about the function of triangles. After connecting the piece diagonally and demonstrating that the square was not moving anymore, families were explicitly told that triangles are the strongest shape. Families who were not in the engineering instructions condition did not see the exhibit component prior to presentation of the problem-solving tasks. Problem-solving tasks and transfer instructions We observed all families in the Skyscraper Challenge building space in the 2500-square-foot Skyline exhibit (Fig. 2). The Skyscraper Challenge features small-scale plastic building materials, including mending plates, beams, and girders. We presented the participating parents and children with a wobbly skyscraper made out of the small-scale plastic building materials available in the Skyscraper Challenge building area (Fig. 3A); we presented the children with a wobbly bridge made out of the same small-scale plastic building materials (Fig. 3B). For each problem-solving task, we invited all children and parents to ‘‘fix it and make it sturdier, stronger, so it doesn’t wobble anymore.” Immediately prior to starting the first problem-solving task, we informed families in the transfer instructions group that the children would fix a wobbly bridge on their own after stabilizing the skyscraper. We also showed these families the wobbly bridge; those who were not in the transfer instructions condition did not know about or see the second problem-solving task until after they completed the first one. We gave all families 12 min, plus an additional 3 min if they wanted, for a total of 15 min per engineering problem. Both problem-solving tasks were video-recorded. Parent questionnaire While the children worked on the second engineering problem, parents filled out a questionnaire. They reported demographic information, including level of education, ethnicity, and race, and rated their own and their children’s prior knowledge of and interest in building on a scale of 1 (knew very little/very little interest) to 7 (knew a great deal/very high interest). Coding The sturdiness of the final structures for the first and second problem-solving tasks was scored from photographs that were taken of all four sides of each structure. The video records of the family conversations during the first engineering problem (masked for condition) were scored using Noldus Observer Pro software (http://www.noldus.com). The procedure for establishing inter-rater reliability was the same for all of the coding. Two researchers, blind to condition, independently coded 20% of the photos and video records. Once reliability was established, no single reliability estimate was below Cohen’s kappa (j) = 0.70. The remainder of the data was coded by one reliable coder with checks by a second reliable coder. Engineering principle use Coders scored each of the two final structures, and reliability was j = 1.00 for each of the following: (a) total number of pieces added to the structures, excluding nuts and bolts, and (b) total number of braces. Simply adding a large number of pieces would not have successfully solved the engineering design problem posed by the wobbly structures. A brace was a piece placed so as to restrict the movement of the structure in any direction. From an engineering standpoint, diagonal bracing is the crucial engineering design principle to stabilize the skyscraper and bridge problems we presented to our participants (S. Sorby, personal communication, November 14, 2011). Talk during the first engineering problem The parent–child conversations during the first engineering problem were coded for STEM talk. The coding unit was instance of occurrence, such that ‘‘What do you think will happen if I add this triangle

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Fig. 2. Skyscraper Challenge building space.

here?” received credit for engineering (bracing) and science process (asking for a hypothesis). The codes were defined as follows: 1. Science process—talk about hypothesis testing, problem solving, delegating work, figuring something out, redoing based on something not working, planning how to build, or proposing an idea (e.g., ‘‘What do you think will happen if I add this triangle here?”; ‘‘Why don’t you add this beam first, and then we’ll move onto the next one?”) 2. Technology—talk that involves labeling building materials or talk about the function of building materials (e.g., ‘‘Give me a beam.”; ‘‘What are these girders for?”) 3. Engineering—talk about bracing (or triangles or cross-braces) and/or their function, how to make the structure sturdy, how to connect pieces, how to tighten nuts and bolts, as well as talk about parts of the building, such as floors and windows (e.g., ‘‘How can we make this skyscraper sturdier?”; ‘‘Let’s add a triangle here.”)

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Fig. 3. (A) First problem-solving task. Families worked together to stabilize this wobbly skyscraper. (B) Second problem-solving task. Children worked alone to stabilize this wobbly bridge.

4. Mathematics—talk about numbers, length, weight, or geometric shapes other than triangles (e.g., ‘‘Give me three more blue pieces.”; ‘‘The light blue piece does not fit here—we need a shorter one.”). Kappa values for STEM talk were js = 0.79, 0.70, 0.84, and 0.84, for parents’ science process, technology, engineering, and mathematics talk, respectively, and js = 0.91, 0.70, 0.80, and 0.92, for children’s science process, technology, engineering, and mathematics talk, respectively. Results The main analyses tested hypotheses regarding how instruction and child age relate to problemsolving performance and transfer. Initial analyses documented whether random assignment resulted in instructional groups that were equivalent on the background characteristics (assessed via the parent questionnaire) listed in Table 1. Whereas the instructional groups were not different on any other background characteristic listed in Table 1, Fs  1.25, ps  .30, g2s  0.06, children in the engineering + transfer group (M = 5.90, SD = 1.58) were younger than children in the control group (M = 7.32, SD = 1.40), F(3, 60) = 2.87, p < .05, g2 = 0.13. Children in the engineering instructions (M = 6.53, SD = 1.36) and transfer instructions (M = 6.43, SD = 1.16) groups were not significantly different in age, nor were they different in age from children in the other two groups. We used a median split on child age (M = 6.55, SD = 1.44, Mdn = 6.51) to group children as younger or older to test for effects of age. The children in the younger age group were M = 5.31 years old (SD = 0.75, range = 3.71–6.48), and the children in the older age group were M = 7.71 years old (SD = 0.82, range = 6.51–8.91). In the main analyses, for each dependent measure a 4 (Instructional Condition: engineering + transfer instructions, engineering instructions, transfer instructions, or control)  2 (Child Age: younger or older) analysis of variance (ANOVA) was followed by pairwise tests of significant main effects, with a Bonferroni adjustment for multiple comparisons (all ps < .05 unless otherwise noted).

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Table 1 Means and standard deviations for family background characteristics by instructional condition. Demographic variable

Instructional condition

Child age (years) Maternal education Second parent’s education Parents’ prior knowledge Parents’ interest in building Children’s prior knowledge Children’s interest in building

Engineering + transfer instructions

Engineering instructions

Transfer instructions

Control

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

5.90 4.53 3.81 3.00 3.63 2.31 5.13

1.58 1.06 1.28 2.10 1.71 1.40 1.50

6.53 4.27 4.15 4.00 3.63 2.19 4.38

1.36 0.88 0.90 1.86 2.03 1.28 2.53

6.43 4.40 4.31 3.13 3.88 2.31 4.94

1.16 0.91 1.11 1.96 1.96 1.14 1.77

7.32 4.06 4.42 4.00 4.06 2.94 4.63

1.40 0.85 1.24 1.86 1.77 1.61 2.25

Note. Prior knowledge and interest in building were rated on a scale from 1 to 7.

First engineering problem Children worked with their parents to solve the first engineering problem to stabilize a wobbly skyscraper. Families added 10.81 pieces to the skyscraper on average. As shown in the top portion of Table 2, although families with older children added more pieces to the skyscraper than families with younger children, F(1, 56) = 4.82, p < .05, g2 = 0.07, families in the four instructional groups did not differ in the total number of pieces added to the skyscraper, F(3, 56) = 2.13, p = .11, g2 = 0.09, nor was there a significant Instructional Condition  Child Age interaction, F(3, 56) = 0.50, p = .68, g2 = 0.02. Engineering principle use The first hypothesis was that families who received engineering instructions would demonstrate better understanding of the engineering principle of bracing when compared with families who did not receive engineering instructions. On average, 6.41 (59%) of the pieces families added to the skyscraper served to brace the structure. As shown in Table 2, and consistent with our hypothesis, families who received engineering and transfer instructions and those who received engineering instructions alone added more braces to stabilize the skyscraper than families who received only transfer instructions, F(3, 56) = 4.13, p < .05, g2 = 0.17. Those who did not receive instructions were not different from the other three groups. There was neither a significant main effect of child age nor an Instructional Condition  Child Age interaction for the total number of braces added to the skyscraper, Fs  81, ps  .50, g2s  0.03. Therefore, families with younger and older children alike used the engineering principle of bracing when working to solve the first engineering problem and successfully stabilized the wobbly skyscraper.

Table 2 Means and standard deviations for the total number of pieces and total number of braces added to the structures. Instructional condition

Child age

Engineering + transfer instructions

Engineering instructions

Transfer instructions

Control

M

SD

Younger

Older

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

First engineering problem Total pieces 9.31 4.77 Braces 7.81 4.85

9.75 8.69

3.96 3.24

10.00 3.31

4.56 4.59

14.19 5.81

6.53 5.09

9.00 6.19

3.80 4.44

12.52 6.61

5.98 5.29

Second engineering problem Total pieces 5.25 3.49 Braces 3.38 4.03

5.13 1.00

2.28 1.26

5.88 1.00

4.35 1.55

6.56 0.88

3.35 1.82

4.68 1.35

2.76 1.76

6.67 1.76

3.71 3.20

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M. Marcus et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 175 (2018) 80–95 Table 3 Means and standard deviations for families’ STEM talk during the first problem-solving task. Instructional condition

Child age

Engineering + transfer instructions

Engineering instructions

Transfer instructions

Control

Younger

Older

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

Parents Science process Technology Engineering Mathematics

10.25 12.75 22.50 6.75

4.61 8.56 11.37 4.34

7.06 9.88 19.13 6.06

4.12 6.81 11.79 5.11

8.56 7.94 20.75 4.56

5.99 6.61 9.66 3.35

5.00 7.06 16.25 2.44

3.20 4.86 9.03 2.83

9.35 12.26 24.03 5.74

4.75 8.17 10.45 4.71

6.18 6.73 15.55 4.21

4.57 4.39 8.94 3.68

Children Science process Technology Engineering Mathematics

1.63 4.69 4.88 3.19

1.63 3.52 3.69 3.02

2.25 4.38 7.94 2.63

2.29 6.56 9.42 3.10

3.13 4.50 6.94 2.88

3.22 5.22 4.51 2.36

1.19 6.13 7.13 2.25

1.33 6.68 4.49 2.24

1.84 3.84 5.23 2.32

2.21 3.93 3.93 2.52

2.24 5.94 8.12 3.12

2.41 6.63 7.13 2.77

STEM talk We hypothesized that the combination of engineering and transfer instructions might engender more talk about science process, technology, engineering, and mathematics among parents and children while problem solving. As shown in the top portion of Table 3, in contrast to parents of older children, parents of younger children talked more about science process, F(1, 56) = 3.92, p = .05, g2 = 0.06, technology, F(1, 56) = 8.18, p < .01, g2 = 0.12, and engineering, F(1, 56) = 8.84, p < .01, g2 = 0.13, but not mathematics, F(1, 56) = 0.64, p = .43, g2 = 0.01. The only effect of instruction was for parents’ mathematics talk, and it was marginally statistically significant, F(3, 56) = 2.64, p = .058, g2 = 0.12. Parents who received both engineering and transfer instructions (M = 6.75, SD = 4.34) tended to talk more about mathematics than parents who did not receive any instructions (M = 2.44, SD = 2.83). There were no significant main effects of instruction for parents’ science process, technology, and engineering talk, Fs  2.17, ps  .10, g2s  0.10, and there were no significant Instructional Condition  Child Age interactions for any of the four talk variables, Fs  0.57, ps  .64, g2s  0.03. Even though there were differences in parents’ talk with older and younger children, as shown in the bottom of Table 3, the children’s talk about science process, engineering, technology, and mathematics was not affected by child age, Fs  2.59, ps  .11, g2s  0.04. Regarding the instructions, it was only for children’s science process talk that there was a marginally significant effect of transfer instructions, F(3, 56) = 2.64, p = .06, g2 = 0.11. Children who received transfer instructions only tended to talk more about science process than children who did not receive any instructions, with no differences in science process talk among the other groups. There were no significant main effects of instructional condition for children’s talk about technology, engineering, and mathematics, Fs  0.58, ps  .63, g2s  0.03. There were no significant interactions between instructional conditions and child age for children’s talk about science process, technology, engineering, and mathematics, Fs  1.36, ps  26, g2s  0.07. In sum, the engineering and transfer instructions led to a few differences in the frequency of parents’ and children’s STEM-related talk while engaged in engineering problem solving. The engineering and transfer instructions together led parents who received them to tend to talk more about mathematics compared with those who received no instructions. Children who received transfer instructions tended to talk more about science process compared with children who did not receive any instructions. Parents of younger children talked more about science process, technology, and engineering than parents of older children, but older and younger children did not differ in their STEM talk during the problem-solving activity. Second engineering problem The children’s performance alone on the second engineering problem, stabilizing a wobbly bridge, provided a test of transfer of learning across problems. On average, children added 5.70 pieces to the

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bridge. As shown in the lower portion of Table 2, older children added more pieces than younger children, F(1, 56) = 4.78, p = .05, g2 = 0.03. There were no differences by instructional condition or Instructional Condition  Child Age effects for the total number of pieces incorporated into the structure, Fs  0.45, ps  .72, g2s = 0.01. Engineering principle use We hypothesized that the combination of engineering and transfer instructions would promote transfer of learning. More specifically, we predicted that providing families with engineering and transfer instructions would relate to families’ performance on the first task, which would indirectly support children’s task performance on the perceptually different, but conceptually related, wobble bridge task. This hypothesis held, but only for the older children. Specifically, the main effect of instructional condition, F(3, 56) = 6.78, p < .01, g2 = 0.22, was qualified by an Instructional Condition  Child Age interaction, F(3, 56) = 3.85, p < .05, g2 = 0.13. Older children who received both engineering and transfer instructions incorporated significantly more braces (M = 6.20, SD = 6.18) than those who received only engineering instructions (M = 1.22, SD = 1.48), only transfer instructions (M = 1.50, SD = 2.00), or no instructions at all (M = 0.36, SD = 0.81). For younger children, the main effect of instructional condition was not significant, F(3, 27) = 1.98, p = .14, g2 = 0.01. Therefore, the older children who received the combination of engineering and transfer instructions demonstrated the best ability to transfer across problem-solving tasks. Discussion Taken together, the findings reveal conditions that support children’s learning and transfer of knowledge in the context of hands-on problem solving in a museum. The engineering and transfer instructions helped the children and families who received them as they worked to solve the first engineering problem together. The engineering instructions, either alone or in combination with the transfer instructions, led to families using the engineering principle bracing more than those who heard only the transfer instructions. The combination of engineering and transfer instructions was also linked to some small differences across instructional groups in parents’ and children’s STEM-related talk. Parents’ STEM-related talk varied with child age, such that parents with younger children talked more about science process, technology, and engineering compared with parents with older children. In addition, the engineering and transfer instructions advanced the older children’s abilities to understand and perform the second problem-solving task. Older children who received both engineering and transfer instructions were better at stabilizing the second wobbly structure than older children who received only engineering instructions, only transfer instructions, or no instructions at all. Engineering principle use Using a permanent exhibit display to convey engineering information, we examined whether families could apply what they saw demonstrated with one set of materials when working to stabilize structures made with different materials. Connecting the engineering information conveyed with the exhibit display to fixing the wobbly skyscraper can be thought of as a ‘‘farther” transfer task (e.g., Barnett & Ceci, 2002; Klahr & Chen, 2011). A ‘‘nearer” transfer task would be if the materials used to provide engineering instructions and the ones involved in the problem-solving task were the same (e.g., Benjamin et al., 2010; Haden et al., 2014). ‘‘High alignment” between the structures used for instruction and the problem to be solved (i.e., nearer transfer) might make learning and transfer of learning more likely to occur (Gentner et al., 2016). Nevertheless, simply seeing physical models of sturdy structures, or being exposed to informational signs about how to build sturdy structures, does not necessarily support transfer of learning (e.g., Benjamin et al., 2010; Haden et al., 2014). For example, Marcus et al. (2017) conveyed the engineering information through a demonstration that involved skyscrapers made out of drinking straws and then observed families building skyscrapers with different exhibit materials. Seeing which straw

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skyscrapers were able to withstand the ‘‘wind” (from a leaf blower) was not sufficient to promote transfer. When building their own structures, families used bracing most when the straw structure demonstration was paired with explicit instruction about bracing. In the current study, the families in the no-instruction control group may well have looked for information in the exhibit—specifically the skyscrapers built by previous visitors—to gain insights into the problem-solving activity. The current study extends prior work to show that the use of an exhibit display to demonstrate a key building engineering principle is effective in increasing families’ use of the engineering principle. Families who received engineering instructions used the most braces when working to fix the wobbly skyscraper and, thus, were most successful in solving the engineering problem. That the effect is specific to adding braces is further supported by the fact that there were no differences across instructional groups in the total number of pieces added to fix the structure. STEM talk Family conversations can also aid STEM problem solving (Bell et al., 2009; Crowley, Callanan, Jipson, et al., 2001; Gentner et al., 2016). Nevertheless, it is somewhat surprising that there were not more differences across instructional groups in parents’ and children’s STEM talk. Although mathematics talk was relatively rare, parents who received engineering and transfer instructions tended to talk more about mathematics than those who received no instructions. Children who received transfer instructions tended to talk more about science process than children who did not receive any instructions. The time limit of 12–15 min to problem solve, and the demands of the hands-on activity, may have reduced talk across all families (Haden et al., 2014). If we had assessed what families talked about when reflecting on the activity after fixing the structures, more differences across conditions in STEM talk might have been observed. Several studies have recently shown that the effects of instructions in museum settings may be magnified in conversations that occur after hands-on activities are completed (Benjamin et al., 2010; Haden et al., 2014; Jant et al., 2014; Marcus et al., 2017). For example, Haden et al. (2014) found that it was when prompted to tell a narrative immediately after their building experience that children who received engineering information talked more about STEM than those who did not receive such information. We did find striking differences with regard to parents’ STEM talk with younger and older children. Parents of younger children talked more about science, technology, and engineering than parents of older children. A number of cross-sectional studies have reported no differences in mothers’ provision of science explanations based on children’s age (e.g., Crowley, Callanan, Jipson, et al., 2001; Crowley, Callanan, Tenenbaum, & Allen, 2001; Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003). But in a longitudinal study, mothers engaged in more science process talk while working on a magnet task at home when their children were 9 years old than when they were 5 years old (Tenenbaum, Snow, Roach, & Kurland, 2005). Although our findings seem to stand in contrast to these prior reports, it may be that when faced with a problem to solve, parents provided more guidance and support to younger children, and this was manifest in more STEM talk with younger children compared with older children. As we see it, this result is consistent with notions of scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) and the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) based in sociocultural theory. Parents of older children may have backed off their verbal support commensurate with their children’s level of skill and ability. Transfer across problems When considering transfer, we focused on children’s performance on the second engineering problem when working on their own. Older children who received both engineering and transfer instructions were more successful in stabilizing the wobbly bridge than older children in the other three groups. Children in the engineering + transfer group were told that cross-bracing stabilizes wobbly structures, and were also provided with the opportunity to test how cross-bracing stabilized a wobbly structure (i.e., an example). Furthermore, these children were provided with a hint, via the transfer instructions, that what was learned during the first task could be used to solve the second task.

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Extrapolating from prior work on transfer across analogy story problems, these conditions could be expected to promote transfer (Brown & Kane, 1988; Holyoak, et al., 1984). Our findings of age difference in transfer are also consistent with the transfer literature. The older children might have outperformed the younger children because they were more capable of reflecting on problem solutions, extracting general rules, and generalizing across problems on their own (Brown & Kane, 1988). The younger children may have been more influenced by superficial perceptual dissimilarities between the skyscraper and the bridge (Brown & Kane, 1988; Brown et al., 1986). Younger children may need more prompting and practice to reflect on the similarities across learning and transfer problems and may have needed more examples that illustrate the engineering principle before being able to transfer it. Making use of the explicit transfer instructions may also have been more challenging for the younger children compared with the older children because of limitations in younger children’s abilities to reason about the future or use language to predict future events (e.g., Benson, 1997; Hudson, 2006). The younger children were ‘‘sequestered” from the support their parents could provide when working on the second task, and this too could have worked against their abilities to transfer (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Fender & Crowley, 2007). Limitations The majority of the families in this sample were Caucasian and highly educated, which limits our ability to examine how variations in family background characteristics may affect learning and transfer. The ways in which families make use of exhibit information and approach problem-solving tasks with their children may vary with the funds of knowledge they bring to the experience (e.g., González, Moll, & Amanti, 2013; Tenenbaum & Callanan, 2008). For example, a previous study found that children’s prior play experiences at home were related to their problem-solving success in a museum setting (Tõugu, Marcus, Haden, & Uttal, 2017). Such findings suggest that the knowledge families bring with them to the museum better prepares them to learn and transfer their learning across situations. Although prior work (Haden et al., 2014) suggests that families from diverse backgrounds would benefit from the kinds of information provided in this study, it is also important to consider how to best capitalize on what prior knowledge families bring to a museum to support learning and transfer between museum and home. Our test of transfer may have underestimated what children learned and the potential for future learning. Specifically, stabilizing the bridge may have presented a more challenging problem than stabilizing the skyscraper. Marcus (2016) studied a separate group of families who first were asked to stabilize a wobbly bridge and then, immediately after, the children worked to stabilize a wobbly skyscraper on their own. In this case, families who received engineering + transfer instructions added no more braces to the bridge structure than those in the control condition; in all groups, the addition of braces to the bridge was rare. In an exhibit focused on building skyscrapers, the applications of the engineering principle to the bridge may have been less comprehensible. Moreover, extending from work on spatial language learning (e.g., Clark, 1973), it may be that the effects of gravity were more obvious with the skyscraper than the bridge because the skyscraper is oriented in the vertical dimension. Thus, the process for connecting preexisting spatial knowledge of gravity and the spatial engineering principle bracing may have, in turn, been more evident for the skyscraper than for the bridge. Our work is also limited by the single, short-term assessment of transfer across engineering problems in the museum. Indeed, the assumption that children will transfer and generalize what is learned from a museum visit to other problems and contexts afterward has been largely untested. Identifying conditions that promote remote transfer is a theoretically and practically important avenue for future work. Conclusions and implications for museums The current study offers important information that museum educators and other professionals may find particularly useful about ways in which to promote learning and transfer of knowledge in informal educational settings. First, the findings highlight that exhibits that convey key engineering information can increase families’ understanding and use of such information across situations. Not

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all children and families come to an exhibit with knowledge that would guide successful problem solving, and so physical supports in the environment (i.e., hands-on information activities) may be critical in advancing opportunities for STEM learning in exhibits. Second, efforts to explicitly connect across related activities may be crucial to supporting transfer. The transfer instructions used here involved connecting across perceptually different engineering problems that could be solved using the same engineering principle. Helping families to see the connections across problems can increase the likelihood that transfer will occur. Taken together, the results of this study demonstrate that providing families with simple, but actionable information can advance children’s STEM learning and transfer of learning. As the work recommends practices that can support STEM learning in museums, it also adds to understanding in developmental and learning sciences of conditions that promote learning and transfer. Acknowledgments This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under collaborative grant 1123411/1122712. We thank our partners at the Chicago Children’s Museum, especially Tsivia Cohen and Rick Garmon. Thanks to Taylor Adams and Margaret Christie for their research assistance. We also extend our appreciation to the families who participated in this research.

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