My interdisciplinary research program examines how children process different kinds of explanations and how cognitive, social, and identity-related factors shape their understanding of science. Across experimental and applied studies, I investigate how children process explanations about the natural world and how they understand what it means to engage with science. I am also interested in how children’s learning is influenced by various learning contexts—from classrooms to children’s media– and how these contexts can be designed in ways to support children’s knowledge acquisition. I am also very interested in helping improve public engagement with science, to improve how complex scientific ideas are communicated to learners of all ages.
Children’s explanatory expertise
Children build much of their knowledge by learning from others’ explanations, yet not all explanations are equally informative or scientifically warranted. My dissertation examines how elementary-aged children evaluate, learn from, and generate explanations about non-living natural phenomena. Using experimental methods, I study how children distinguish causal explanations from intuitive but scientifically unwarranted ones, and how children’s processing of various kinds of explanations relates to broader cognitive abilities, contextual cues, and identity-related factors. This work aims to clarify how children develop explanatory expertise and how the development of this expertise may be influenced by individual and social differences.
conceptions of science and science identity
People differ widely in how they understand what it means to “do science,” and these differences may influence who feels a sense of belonging in science. In this line of work, I examine how children and adults conceptualize science, and how these conceptions relate to science identity—the extent to which individuals see science as relevant to who they are. By studying these relationships across development, my research sheds light on how ideas about science emerge and how they may support or hinder engagement with scientific learning over time.
Evolving Minds: Learning Evolution Through Explanatory Models
As part of the Evolving Minds project, I worked on an evidence-based curriculum designed to help elementary-aged children understand evolution by natural selection through structured explanatory models. My contributions included curriculum development, classroom observations, and research on how children’s pre-existing understanding of what science is and science identity influenced learning outcomes (paper forthcoming!). This work showed that children who viewed science as fundamentally explanatory demonstrated greater learning gains, highlighting the importance of how science is framed—not just what content is taught.
children’s learning from media
Another strand of my research focuses on how children learn from science-themed media, including television shows and books. My work examines how educational media influences children’s science knowledge, environmental concern, and self-efficacy, and how fantastical elements are integrated with scientific content. While such media can successfully engage children emotionally, my findings raise important questions about how media supports conceptual understanding, particularly when fantasy and factual information are closely intertwined. Read the paper here!
Aarti Bodas 