Hurst2tal.2019LeveragingResearchonInformalLearningtoInformPolicyonPromotingEarlySTEM.pdf

Social Policy Report | 1

Volume 32, Number 3 | 2019

Social Policy Report
Leveraging Research on Informal Learning to Inform Policy
on Promoting Early STEM

Michelle A. Hurst, University of Chicago

Naomi Polinsky, Northwestern University

Catherine A. Haden, Loyola University Chicago

Susan C. Levine, University of Chicago

David H. Uttal, Northwestern University

ABSTRACT
In recent decades, educators and policymakers in the United States have increased their
focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) learning opportunities
both in school and in informal learning environments outside of school. Informal STEM
learning can take place in varied settings and involves a variety of STEM domains (e.g.,
engaging in engineering practices in a construction exhibit at a museum; talking about
math during book reading at home). Here we provide a selective review of the literature
on informal STEM learning to illustrate how these educational experiences are crucial for
efforts to increase early STEM learning even before children reach school age. Leveraging
cognitive and learning science research to inform policy, we make three recommendations
to advance the impact of informal STEM learning: 1) integrate cognitive and learning
science–based learning practices into informal learning contexts, 2) increase accessibility
and diversity of informal STEM experiences, and 3) create explicit connections and
coherence between formal and informal STEM learning opportunities in early childhood
education.

Corresponding author:
Michelle A. Hurst ([email protected]; [email protected])

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Social Policy Report

Volume 32, Number 3 | 2019

ISSN 1075-7031

Social Policy Report

is published three times a year

by the Society for Research in

Child Development.

EDITORIAL TEAM

Lead Editor

Ellen Wartella, PhD

[email protected]

Associate Editor

Fashina Aladé, PhD

[email protected]

Editorial Board

P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, PhD

Sandra Waxman, PhD

David Figlio, PhD

Craig Garfi eld, MD

Neil Jordan, PhD

Terri Sabol, PhD

David Uttal, PhD

Diane Schanzenbach, PhD

Dedre Gentner, PhD

Matthew M. Davis, MD

Amelie Petitclerc, PhD

Rachel Flynn, PhD

Onnie Rogers, PhD

SRCD Policy Staff

Kelly R. Fisher, PhD

Anna Kimura

Science Writer

Anne Bridgman

Manager of Publications

Rachel Walther

FROM THE EDITOR

This Social Policy Report is situated in a particular contemporary context: as the authors make

clear, since 2010 there has been federal-level interest in encouraging children’s enthusiasm for

science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to help ensure that our nation has an ade-

quate supply of STEM workers in the future (an area where we have been lagging behind).

Additionally, there are some real concerns about public education today; across the United

States, this past year has seen teacher strikes, reduction of school to four days a week in some

areas, and evidence of a halt in progress on student performance on national standardized

achievement tests. Given the great stress that is already placed on teachers in formal school set-

tings, the central idea of this SPR is that we look at how informal educational settings—such as

museums, clubs and organizations, and simply the home environment—can enhance, augment,

and provide a more comprehensive approach to encouraging STEM interest in young children.

Furthermore, these informal settings provide opportunities to engage parents and caregivers in

encouraging their children’s interest in STEM.

Within this SPR, the authors, a team of cognitive and developmental scientists across three

universities in the Chicago area, provide concrete evidence for the importance of informal

settings as a way to promote STEM interest, engagement, and learning among preschool and

early grade school children. As the authors note, informal settings are “nondidactic” and allow

for more informal guidance by adults to engage children in activities that “build upon the child’s

own interests and initiatives.” The authors also provide substantial evidence that early STEM

experiences are important for later achievement. Exposing children to STEM early in life can not

only encourage the child’s interest in STEM, but also support the development of higher

thinking skills.

Given the importance of early informal STEM learning, three policy recommendations are offered

here. First, that cognitive science based learning principles be incorporated in informal learning

settings (and especially in museums). The authors argue persuasively that increasing children’s

STEM language and ability to articulate STEM activities is important for advancing higher

cognitive skill development and in turn will increase children’s interest in STEM activities.

Second, when museum workers or exhibits provide a wider diversity in workers and a wider

range of cultural activities, more children will be engaged. Therefore, more diversity and greater

accessibility should be incorporated into informal STEM settings, especially in underserved

communities. Third, that connections between informal and formal (i.e., school) settings should

be made more transparent, such as when schools develop family school partnerships to

incorporate parents and caregivers into school-based STEM programs. This recommendation

aligns well with the common theme in education today of finding home-to-school and

school-to-home pathways and programs to traverse these environments. A logical and important

next step is to incorporate other cultural institutions into these pathways as well.

This SPR notes as well that there is still much research needed in to realize the poten-

tial for advancing children’s interest in STEM. For instance, more research is needed on young

children since the extant literature primarily has examined older children’s STEM activities and

learning. How should these activities be encouraged among younger children before they enter

formal schooling? Second, more work is needed to develop best practices for creating strong con-

nections among cultural institutions, schools, and families. This is especially the case for children

living in non-urban and rural environments. Third, this SPR makes clear that social policy is set at

many levels, not just within federal- or state-level institutions. It is important that we continue

to find new ways of encouraging education outside of schools and outside of traditional policy

quarters if we are to truly be effective at increasing our STEM capacity.

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Leveraging Research on Informal Learning to Inform Policy on Pro-
moting Early STEM

There is a critical need in the United States to increase the quantity, quality, and
diversity of future professionals in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering,
and Mathematics (STEM). Although the percentage of US students pursuing STEM
degrees in college is on the rise, it remains low in many STEM disciplines (National
Science Board, 2018). Moreover, disparities in STEM achievement begin even before
children enter the primary school classroom (Morgan, Farkas, Hillemeier, & Maczuga,
2016), making advancing STEM educational opportunities a national priority (e.g.,
“Educate to Innovate”; Obama Administration, 2010). There is also considerable
consensus, however, that important efforts to enhance STEM education in schools are
only part of the solution to the STEM problem. Indeed, meaningful informal STEM
learning opportunities can add substantially to the experiences that children have in
schools (Meltzoff, Kuhl, Movellan, & Sejnowski, 2009; Stevens, Bransford, & Stevens,
2005) and are a critical objective of early childhood education even before the start of
formal schooling. Informal STEM education is increasingly being targeted as part of a
comprehensive effort to increase STEM engagement, stimulate and build interest, and
support learning (Bell, Lewenstein, Shouse, & Feder, 2009).

In the current report, we characterize the powerful learning opportunities that informal
STEM experiences can provide to young children and make policy recommendations
that harness the potential of early informal STEM learning opportunities to bolster
science education. Our recommendations are based on cognitive science research,
leverage this research for use in a variety of informal settings, and aim to support
STEM educational policy.

Early STEM in Informal Educational Settings

Informal learning opportunities occur in a broad array of settings, including at
museums and other cultural institutions, within clubs that focus on STEM, and at
home during everyday activities, such as gardening or playing with blocks and puzzles
(Bell et al., 2009). Despite the variation in opportunities for STEM learning across

informal learning contexts, informal STEM
education is characterized as social, playful,
and engaging in ways that foster children’s
natural tendency to ask questions, explore,
and experiment (Bell et al., 2009). This type of
active STEM engagement can supply substantial
high-quality learning opportunities for young
children (Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Singer,
& Berk, 2010; Hassinger-Das, Bustamante, Hirsh-
Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2018; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015;
Ramani & Eason, 2015; Schulz & Bonawitz, 2007;

Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff, 2013). Although designed environments, such
as museum exhibits, may be particularly well suited for both fostering and studying
these informal learning opportunities, the recommendations and principles of informal

Informal STEM education is characterized
as social, playful, and engaging in ways that
foster children’s natural tendency to ask
questions, explore, and experiment.

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STEM learning discussed in this report can be used in a variety of settings, including
in the home, where children spend much of their time (Meltzoff et al., 2009). Thus, we
draw on a range of examples of informal STEM learning from libraries, museums, and
observations of parent–child interactions more generally.

Regardless of the particular informal learning context one important feature of informal
learning is that it is nondidactic (Rogoff, Callanan, Gutiérrez, & Erickson, 2016). That is,
the learner freely chooses how and what they engage with and the adults do not fully
control the flow of the activity or constrain the environment with their own prescribed
learning goals (Toub, Rajan, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2016). The nondidactic nature of
informal environments is beneficial for children’s learning in a variety of ways. First, it
allows children to choose the content with which they want to engage, allowing them to
fulfill their own learning needs, motivated by their curiosity. This is the essence of free
choice learning, which contributes to a majority of the public’s science knowledge (Falk,
Storksdieck, & Dierking, 2007). Furthermore, the free choice aspect of informal contexts
facilitates a variety of entry points to learning for children with diverse backgrounds,
interests, and levels of expertise (Falk & Dierking, 2010). Finally, free choice within
informal contexts can contribute substantially to children’s meaningful exploration and
engagement with objects. Although children sometimes benefit from engaging in free
exploration independently (e.g., Bonawitz et al., 2011), adults can provide guidance and
facilitation that expands upon a particular experience without limiting or constraining it.
By providing this guidance, adults can help structure the environment, so that children
are actively engaged in the learning process (Weisberg et al., 2013). Importantly,
however, this active guidance is distinct from the explicit instruction often used in
formal STEM learning and is especially good at facilitating opportunities for children’s
exploration and discovery without the constraints of formal instruction.

A second cornerstone of informal learning is that the experiences build upon the child’s
own interests and initiatives (Haden, 2010; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015; Rogoff et al., 2016;
Toub et al., 2016). When the relations between STEM content and children’s experiences
and interests are made explicit, children more readily understand and make sense of
new content, remember information, and engage in sustained learning (Ornstein, Haden,
& Hedrick, 2004; Valle & Callanan, 2006). For instance, Valle and Callanan (2006) found
that children in early elementary school learn most from science activities when parents
relate the content of this homework to more familiar and relevant subject matter—
subject matter that engages children’s interests.

Lastly, children may benefit most when informal learning is social and involves other
peers or adults. Social interactions often require that children explain their thinking,
ideas, and problem-solving process. Providing these explanations can help children
to deepen their own understanding of the problem, which can enhance their learning
(Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989; Chiu & Chi, 2014; Hirsh-Pasek et al.,
2015; Rau, Aleven, & Rummel, 2015). Furthermore, social interactions within informal
environments help highlight what children can learn, as well as when and how they
can learn it (Meltzoff et al., 2009). In turn, social interactions can facilitate children’s
focus on potentially valuable information or experiences that may otherwise go
unnoticed in environments that are less structured then the typical classroom (Haden,
2010).

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These qualities of informal learning—free choice,
being individually meaningful, and occurring
within a social context—contribute to making
informal learning especially unique and valuable.
Early informal learning experiences have
the potential to enhance children’s readiness
to engage in science learning in school and
encourage lifelong STEM pursuits. In the following
sections, we review evidence that supports the
importance of early STEM for promoting children’s

STEM learning and development in three ways: 1) predicting academic learning, 2)
fostering positive attitudes and interest surrounding STEM, and 3) developing higher
and critical thinking skills.

Informal Experiences Support STEM Achievement

Early STEM experiences are associated with higher achievement in math, spatial
reasoning, and engineering (Casey et al., 2008; Grissmer et al., 2013; Gunderson
& Levine, 2011; Jirout & Newcombe, 2015; Levine, Ratliff, Huttenlocher, & Cannon,
2012; Levine, Suriyakham, Rowe, Huttenlocher, & Gunderson, 2010; Pruden, Levine,
& Huttenlocher, 2011; Ramani & Siegler, 2014; Tõugu, Marcus, Haden, & Uttal, 2017;
Verdine et al., 2014). For example, experimental evidence shows that playing linear
number board games can improve number knowledge (Siegler & Ramani, 2009) and
when parents and children engage with an instructional and playful mathematics app
at home, even just once a week, children’s math achievement improves (Berkowitz
et al., 2015). Similarly, early experiences with block building and puzzle play can
improve children’s spatial abilities (Casey et al., 2008; Grissmer et al., 2013; Levine
et al., 2012; Verdine et al., 2014). Early experiences may be particularly powerful for
providing children with the skills that are needed for continued and sustained STEM
learning. Tõugu et al. (2017) found that children who engaged in more spatial play at
home benefited more from instruction on how to solve engineering problems in a
museum, suggesting that these home experiences may allow children to make better
use of informal learning opportunities in educational settings. Taken together, this
research suggests that informal experiences engaging with STEM at an early age may
provide children with critical skills for subsequent learning and support later STEM
achievement.

Informal Experiences Promote Positive Attitudes and Interest

A second critical benefit of informal STEM experiences is the potential for supporting
positive attitudes and interests about STEM and combating negative stereotypes,
which may be particularly important for fostering inclusivity and diversifying
representation in STEM fields (e.g., Cheryan, Ziegler, Montoya, & Jiang, 2017).
Children’s participation in out-of-school activities is related to interest in STEM
throughout K-12 education, highlighting the role of informal learning (Young et al.,
2016). Additionally, scientists often report that their interest in STEM-related fields
became evident before they entered middle school (Maltese & Tai, 2010) and many
anecdotes cite the importance of early experiences in particular. For example, scholarly

Early informal learning experiences have the
potential to enhance children’s readiness
to engage in science learning in school and
encourage lifelong STEM pursuits.

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essays about the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, an early 19th-century American architect,
highlight the role of playing with building blocks in his early childhood (McCarter,
2005). Thus, early and informal experiences may play a unique role in contributing to
long-term STEM interests.

In addition to STEM interest, fostering positive attitudes toward STEM fields is
particularly critical given that even early elementary school–age students (e.g., first
graders) can experience math anxiety (Maloney & Beilock, 2012; Ramirez, Gunderson,
Levine, & Beilock, 2013) and hold stereotypes about STEM fields (e.g., that computer
science is for boys), which can impact self-efficacy and motivation (Cvencek, Meltzoff, &
Greenwald, 2011; Master, Cheryan, Moscatelli, & Meltzoff, 2017). Furthermore, negative
attitudes and self-efficacy are often reported as a major contributing factor to not
continuing with formal STEM education (e.g., Cheryan et al., 2017; Hurst & Cordes, 2017;
Hyde, Fennema, Ryan, Frost, & Hopp, 1990; Master et al., 2017). Providing children with
experiences that encourage positive engagement in informal STEM learning can be
particularly useful for promoting positive attitudes and sustained interest. For example,
Master and colleagues found that when 6-year-old girls were provided a robotic learning
experience outside of school they no longer showed differences in STEM interests or
self-efficacy compared to their male peers (Master et al., 2017).

Informal Experiences Support Higher Order Thinking

With the growth of technology and the ease of information access, curricula in formal
STEM education are beginning to focus on bolstering students’ skills that cross-cut
all of the STEM domains (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Cognitive scientists refer to these
skills as higher thinking, which consists of the abilities to flexibly reason about
new information, to integrate new and old knowledge, and to create new insights
through inferencing, comparison, and analogical reasoning (e.g., Lewis & Smith,
1993; Richland & Simms, 2015). Higher thinking is crucial for success within
STEM fields (Goldwater & Schalk, 2016; Jee et al., 2013; Richland & Begolli, 2016;
Richland & Simms, 2015) and, correspondingly, has been emphasized in many recent
guidelines and standards aimed at improving STEM education. For example, the
Common Core’s Standards for Mathematical Practice, prioritize skills for sensemaking,
abstract reasoning, searching for and using common structures across problems
and domains, and understanding why, not just how (National Governors Association
Center for Best Practices, 2010). Similarly, the National Research Council (2012)
describes the cross-cutting concepts for K-12 science education as relying heavily
on relational reasoning; for example, observing patterns across events to facilitate
relational questions and understanding the scientific method through cause-and-
effect relational systems.

The open-ended and exploratory nature of informal learning can provide children with
valuable practice in higher thinking (Haden, 2010; Sobel & Jipson, 2015) and
practice applying that thinking to novel situations (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015; Jant, Haden,
Uttal, & Babcock, 2014; Song et al., 2017). For example, when preschool-aged children are
confronted with unclear causes for a given effect, they implement scientific reasoning,
including experimenting with the materials to isolate and test different aspects of the
toys (Chen & Klahr, 1999; Cook et al., 2011). This process is related to the scientific

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method, involves flexible reasoning (one aspect of higher thinking), and can also
be activated within formal STEM classrooms. Similarly, in makerspaces or tinkering labs,
children are challenged to solve problems by using tools and materials (e.g. scissors,
hammers, wood) to build and create problem solutions, thereby gaining knowledge
about the core principles of science and engineering (Bevan, Petrich, & Wilkinson, 2014;
Lachapelle & Cunningham, 2007). Thus, informal learning contexts are particularly
relevant for STEM development in young children and can provide children with rich
opportunities for STEM engagement (Bell et al., 2009; Fisher, Hirsh-Pasek, Newcombe, &
Golinkoff, 2013; Marcus, Haden, & Uttal, 2017).

Maximizing the Potential of Informal STEM Learning

As the prior review suggests, informal STEM learning experiences can play an
important role in advancing skills and interests that, ultimately, may lead to future
STEM educational and career pursuits. Informal learning opportunities can expose
children to STEM content, promote positive STEM attitudes and interest, and
encourage higher thinking skills. However, the benefits of informal learning
are often not fully realized due to a variety of factors and conditions. Given this
state of affairs, we leverage research in cognitive science to make three policy
recommendations to advance the impact of informal STEM learning: 1) incorporate
cognitive science–based learning practices into informal learning contexts, 2)
increase accessibility and diversity of informal STEM experiences, and 3) create
explicit connections and coherence between formal and informal STEM learning
opportunities. Figure 1 displays how these three recommendations fit together to
mutually support early STEM learning. For each of our three recommendations, we
outline the obstacle that the recommendation aims to address, the evidence that
supports the recommendation, and a brief summary of how the recommendation

Figure 1. Illustrating the overlapping impact of the three recommendations for supporting informal STEM
learning, particularly through bidirectional connections between Schools, Cultural Institutions, and Families.

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can be implemented through policy and funding decisions, including for future
research.

Recommendation 1: Incorporate Cognitive Science–Based Learning Practices
Obstacle to Informal Learning

Although the benefits of informal learning are well documented, the difficulty of
abstracting the underlying STEM principles can make it difficult for high-quality and
generalizable STEM learning to occur in informal ways without some support. In
for children to benefit from this informal learning within the classroom as well as in
informal and oftentimes novel contexts, they must be able to transfer and generalize
learned concepts from one setting to another (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999; Day &
Goldstone, 2012). Research findings show that transfer requires the abstraction of critical
relational structures, which involves attending to information beyond superficial features
(Gentner, Loewenstein, Thompson, & Forbus, 2009; Hummel & Holyoak, 1997). For
example, to use what they learned about the functions of gears in a museum, a child at
the exhibit must not only attend to the colors of the various gears but must also attend
toward the less obvious exhibit lessons about force, shape, and movement that can then
be applied in the science classroom. That is, transfer of underlying STEM concepts from
this exhibit can only occur when the child attends toward the deeper scientific relations.
Unfortunately, overcoming perceptual features, such as color, to consider and abstract
underlying structure is quite difficult (Gentner et al., 2009; Goldstone & Sakamoto, 2003).

Although abstraction is always challenging, it can be particularly difficult in perceptually
rich environments, such as museum exhibits. Perceptually rich environments capture

children’s attention, promote engagement, and
provide concrete and meaningful contexts to
ground abstract information (Fyfe, McNeil, Son,
& Goldstone, 2014; Petersen & McNeil, 2013).
However, these rich environments can also make
it difficult for children to attend to and abstract
the underlying principles that are provided in a
lesson or experience (Fisher, Godwin, & Seltman,
2014; Fyfe et al., 2014; Kaminski, Sloutsky, &
Heckler, 2009; McNeil, Uttal, Jarvin, & Sternberg,
2009). Nevertheless, perceptual richness does
not make abstraction impossible. Cognitive
science research provides substantial evidence
of general learning practices that can be used to

promote abstraction and STEM learning across many diverse settings: rich language,
structural alignment, and gesture.

Evidence-Based Solution

The use of rich language, structural alignment between examples or ideas, and gesture
by teachers, parents, and caregivers can support early STEM learning, promote
abstraction and transfer, and enable children to connect the knowledge gained within
informal settings and more formal contexts. Below, we highlight evidence gathered

Cognitive science research provides
substantial evidence of general learning
practices that can be used to promote
abstraction and STEM learning across many
diverse settings: rich language, structural
alignment, and gesture.

Social Policy Report | 9

in the lab and in informal learning environments indicating that each of these tools is
useful for STEM learning and can be successfully implemented in informal learning
contexts.

Language. Substantial research suggests that having specific vocabulary can help people
solve problems in math (Hornburg, Schmitt, & Purpura, 2018; Purpura, Napoli, Wehrspann,
& Gold, 2017; Purpura & Reid, 2016), patterning (Fyfe, McNeil, & Rittle-Johnson, 2015),
and spatial reasoning (Casasola, Bhagwat, & Burke, 2009; Loewenstein & Gentner, 2005).
Knowledge of specific words can also help children understand more general relations,
such as same and different (Christie & Gentner, 2014) and combine features of objects
(Loewenstein & Gentner, 2005). For example, in one experiment, an experimenter hides an
object and children are asked to find the object in another, analogous, location (Loewenstein
& Gentner, 2005). Children who watched the objects be hidden while hearing the locations
of objects described using spatial language (e.g., “I’m putting it on the shelf,” “I’m putting
it at the top”) were better able to find the object in the new, but analogous, representation
than children who heard generic language (e.g., “I’m putting it here”), despite both seeing
the same hiding scenario and being asked to map between the same visual representations.
The specific kinds of vocabulary may also matter; children performed better when the
highly interrelated terms top, middle, and bottom were used relative to on, in, and under
(Loewenstein & Gentner, 2005). Overall, these studies suggest that understanding and using
the particular vocabulary for STEM-relevant problems can help children think about higher
relations (e.g., the relations of same and different or relations like “on”) and abstract
information across representations.

In addition to specific vocabulary, language and linguistic interactions during everyday
activities relate positively to children’s STEM-related talk and learning (e.g., Gunderson
& Levine, 2011; Pruden et al., 2011), as well as to children’s engagement in STEM (e.g.,
Benjamin, Haden, & Wilkerson, 2010; Braham, Libertus, & McCrink, 2018; Crowley et al.,
2001; Hanner, Braham, Elliott, & Libertus, 2019; Levine et al., 2010; Marcus et al., 2017). In
particular, the quantity and quality of parents’ numerical and spatial talk predict children’s
numerical and spatial language use, as well as their mathematical and spatial thinking
(e.g., Gunderson & Levine, 2011; Levine et al., 2010; Pruden et al., 2011). Furthermore, this
relation is mediated by children’s own language use (Pruden et al., 2011) and encouraging
children to engage in inquiry through conversations with adults can increase children’s
ability to engage in high-quality explanations themselves …