A new American study establishes a link between curiosity and academic success: the more a child shows joy in the discovery and interest in what surrounds him, the more he is likely to have good results in school.
What if a child’s curiosity was an important factor in academic success? This is what researchers at the CS Mott Hospital for Children at the University of Michigan say in a study published in the journal Pediatric Research.
Researchers at CS Mott Children’s Hospital and the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan analyzed data from 6,200 kindergartens in a longitudinal early childhood study called the Birth Cohort. Sponsored by the United States Department of Education, it has followed thousands of children since birth in 2001. Children’s curiosity was measured using a behavioral questionnaire of parents when they were 9 years old. months and 2 years and then again when they entered kindergarten. Children’s scores were assessed in reading and math in 2006 and 2007 when they were in kindergarten.
Curiosity bridges socio-economic gaps
Until now, it was established that children with ease in school generally grew up with parents with high incomes. By analyzing the data collected, researchers at the University of Michigan found that children who could be described as curious obtained, even when they came from families with lower socioeconomic status, educational results similar to those children from higher income families.
“Our results suggest that while higher curiosity is associated with better academic performance in all children, the association of curiosity with school achievement is greater in children of lower socioeconomic status,” explains Prof. Prachi Shah, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician and lead author of the study. According to her, “promoting curiosity in children, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, can be an important and underestimated way of closing the educational achievement gap.”
Promote children’s curiosity for better academic results
The researchers also took into account another important factor of academic success: effort control, which refers to the ability to stay focused in class. They found that regardless of their reading or math skills, children identified as curious did well in these subjects, even if they had poor attention span.
“These results suggest that even if a child shows poor control of effort, he can still have optimal academic results if he shows great curiosity”, analyzes Prof. Shah.
According to her, this demonstrates the need to stimulate children’s curiosity to help them succeed in school. “Currently, most classroom interventions are focused on the culture of early exertion control and children’s self-regulatory abilities, but our results suggest that another message, focusing on the importance of curiosity , should also be considered, ”she emphasizes. “The promotion of curiosity is a foundation of early learning as we should place more emphasis on academic performance,” especially for children in poverty.
However, says the researcher, “more research is needed to help us better understand how to develop interventions to cultivate curiosity in young children.”
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