Prequestioning with feedback fosters learning in young children

Abstract

Background

Prequestioning—attempting to answer questions about unfamiliar information before exposure to the correct answers—has shown promise for enhancing learning. Yet its effectiveness for young children, who have limited cognitive capacities and face unique learning challenges, remains unclear.

Aims

This study investigated whether prequestioning improves learning from science texts in young children and whether the presence of immediate feedback influences its effectiveness.

Sample

Participants were 5- to 6-year-old children (total n = 87; n = 44 in Experiment 1, n = 43 in Experiment 2).

Methods

Children engaged in each of three activities: prequestioning with immediate feedback, prequestioning without feedback, or a non-prequestioning activity (free-drawing in Experiment 1; studying learning objectives in Experiment 2). After each assigned activity, they listened to an age-appropriate scientific story and completed a learning assessment. Their working memory capacity was also assessed.

Results

In Experiment 1, prequestioning with feedback improved learning relative to free-drawing, and this effect did not differ based on whether the information being assessed had been directly prequestioned or not. In Experiment 2, it enhanced learning of directly prequestioned information compared to studying learning objectives. Prequestioning without feedback, however, did not yield statistically significant learning improvements in either experiment. The effects of prequestioning did not differ according to working memory capacity.

Conclusions

Prequestioning enhances young children's learning, particularly for directly questioned information, but only when immediate feedback is provided. These findings suggest that although prequestioning might motivate young children to actively seek out and process new information, such information must be presented within a proximate temporal window to the questions themselves.