The Impact of Informal Learning Environments on Early Oral Language Development
Mentor 1
John Heilmann
Mentor 2
Christopher Lawson
Location
Union Wisconsin Room
Start Date
28-4-2017 1:30 PM
End Date
28-4-2017 4:00 PM
Description
When many think of language development, most would attribute the betterment of a child's language to school environments—formal learning environments. With this study, a look at informal learning environments was chosen to examine the significance that a local museum may have on the development of oral language development via scavenger-hunt tasks. To perform this study, parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to either a word learning or storytelling scavenger-hunt in which they were asked to find designated objects to label and identify (word-learning) or asked to create an interesting story (storytelling) based on designated characters during a single visit (i.e. treatment group). Additionally, parent-child dyads were involved in which were not asked to engage in these scavenger-hunt tasks during their single visit (i.e. control group). At the end of their visit we interviewed both parent and child to see what was learned during their time in the museum. The most salient effects came from the parent-child dyads whom were assigned to the vocabulary treatment group. The children in this group were better able to identify the objects represented by the noun labels and provided more specific definitions of these objects based on function and use than the treatment group. Both had limited ability in establishing a taxonomic category for targeted words. Storytelling tasks required the treatment group to create a story with a problem, feelings, and a conclusion as narrative components. Analysis of interview results concluded that the tasks did not have a significant effect on a child's use of the narrative components. Overall, this study demonstrated the usefulness that a museum can provide in facilitating and fostering children's oral language skills as well as increase a parent's awareness of strategies that can support oral language development. The study also demonstrated the effectiveness of informal learning environments on language development.
The Impact of Informal Learning Environments on Early Oral Language Development
Union Wisconsin Room
When many think of language development, most would attribute the betterment of a child's language to school environments—formal learning environments. With this study, a look at informal learning environments was chosen to examine the significance that a local museum may have on the development of oral language development via scavenger-hunt tasks. To perform this study, parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to either a word learning or storytelling scavenger-hunt in which they were asked to find designated objects to label and identify (word-learning) or asked to create an interesting story (storytelling) based on designated characters during a single visit (i.e. treatment group). Additionally, parent-child dyads were involved in which were not asked to engage in these scavenger-hunt tasks during their single visit (i.e. control group). At the end of their visit we interviewed both parent and child to see what was learned during their time in the museum. The most salient effects came from the parent-child dyads whom were assigned to the vocabulary treatment group. The children in this group were better able to identify the objects represented by the noun labels and provided more specific definitions of these objects based on function and use than the treatment group. Both had limited ability in establishing a taxonomic category for targeted words. Storytelling tasks required the treatment group to create a story with a problem, feelings, and a conclusion as narrative components. Analysis of interview results concluded that the tasks did not have a significant effect on a child's use of the narrative components. Overall, this study demonstrated the usefulness that a museum can provide in facilitating and fostering children's oral language skills as well as increase a parent's awareness of strategies that can support oral language development. The study also demonstrated the effectiveness of informal learning environments on language development.
