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  • 1Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.

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Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Language Acquisition
  • Educational Psychology

Background:

  • Children's question-asking is crucial for learning and information gathering.
  • Prior research shows children can identify knowledgeable informants in lab settings.
  • Limited understanding exists on children's question-asking strategies in naturalistic classroom environments.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate preschoolers' question-asking targets (adults, peers, self-talk) in a naturalistic classroom.
  • To analyze how question characteristics vary based on the intended recipient.
  • To examine age-related changes in children's question-asking strategies.

Main Methods:

  • Recorded spontaneous speech of 30 children (ages 3-6) during 40-minute open-play sessions.
  • Coded utterances for question-asking targets and analyzed linguistic features.
  • Examined variations in question content and recipient based on age.

Main Results:

  • Questions formed a larger part of adult-directed speech compared to child-directed or self-directed speech.
  • Learning-oriented questions significantly increased when directed toward adults.
  • Younger children preferentially directed learning questions to adults, while older children showed more balanced targeting.

Conclusions:

  • Preschoolers strategically select recipients for their questions based on potential knowledge.
  • Even in unstructured settings, children direct questions to those most likely to provide answers.
  • Findings highlight the discriminative nature of children's question-asking in everyday conversations.