Development and validation of a questionnaire to measure primary school children’s images of and attitudes towards curiosity (the CIAC questionnaire)

Abstract

This paper presents a validation study of a questionnaire to measure primary children's images of and attitudes towards curiosity (the CIAC questionnaire). Policy documents and scientific studies on twenty-first century learning increasingly promote the value of stimulating children's curiosity in primary school. However, no well-established measurement instruments yet exist to assess children's curiosity within educational settings. To fill this void, we focused on the measurement of children's perceptions of curiosity, as important precursors to children's potential curiosity-driven behavior. Based on attitude and curiosity theory, we developed seven components of children's images of and attitudes towards curiosity. We translated these components into corresponding measurement scales, which comprise the CIAC. Results of a validation study among 737 children (ages 8-13), using factor analyses, largely confirmed the factor structures of the image and attitude scales and indicated good convergent and discriminant validity. In addition, we provide evidence for the predictive power of children's images and attitudes on their motivation to be curious.

Implementation of Dakon-themed game media: Encourage curiosity 21st century in primary school

“…They are the eligibility of Dakon-themed game media on the topic Where I Live, and the effectiveness of of Dakon-themed game media in improving the curiosity of grade IV students of elementary school. Questionnaires in the form of expert's responses and observation questionnaires can be used for know curiosity [23,24].…”

Fostering inquiry-based pedagogy in primary school

“…The above finding has value for practice as well, since our current results suggest that pupils' pre-existing attitudes towards epistemic curiosity, implicit ability beliefs, effort beliefs, and achievement goal orientations in the upper grades of primary school are moderate at best and seem to worsen as pupils progress through primary school (see also Post & Walma van der Molen, 2018b;Engel, 2015). Thus, if we want to be successful in helping pupils mature into inquisitive, creative, and confident thinkers, such as promoted by twenty-first century education standards (e.g., OECD, 2015), we advocate that teachers attend to fostering these aspects in their pupils as part of their practices.…”

“…or instruments yet exist to promote or assess pupils' epistemic curiosity in school settings (for a review, see Grossnickle, 2016). Post and Walma van der Molen (2018b) were first to propose that, on the basis of attitude theory, pupils' epistemic curiosity can only flourish in classrooms where pupils perceive the epistemic value, pleasure, appreciation, and opportunity of being curiously-minded learners. Together, such cognitive, affective, normative and control perceptions may determine motivations to perform or not perform associated behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980;Eagly & Chaiken, 1993).…”

“…Based on attitude and motivation theory, we propose that attitudes towards epistemic curiosity (Post & Walma van der Molen, 2018b) and implicit ability beliefs (Dweck, 2000) may predict effort beliefs and achievement goal orientation motivations (e.g., Ajzen, 2001;Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980;Blackwell, Trzesniewski, & Dweck, 2007;Eagly & Chaiken, 1993;Grossnickle, 2016;Tempelaar, Rienties, Giesbers, & Gijselaers, 139 2015; Van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma van der Molen, 2018a). Specifying these hypothesized causal relations into testable models, as done in this paper, is important for two reasons.…”

“…).According to Walma van der Molen (2018a, 2018b), such a classroom culture can be characterized by pupils' positive beliefs about the value of question-asking and explanation-seeking for their own learning, about the pleasure to engage in such behavior, and about the appreciation they receive from their teachers and peers for showing such behavior Post and Walma van der Molen (2018b). propose that such positive beliefs can be understood in terms of pupils' attitudes towards epistemic curiosity.…”