This work was informed by Social Cognitive Theory, which describes how behaviors, environments, and personal characteristics influence the learning process (Bandura, 1986). Prior research has used Social Cognitive Theory to study children’s learning in more formal settings, for instance in schools (Burns et al., 2018). This research has focused on students’ academic achievement, and career orientation, with attention to factors such as social support from peers and parents and teachers and personal factors such as self-efficacy and perceived control (Nugent et al., 2015; Burns et al., 2018). However, Social Cognitive Theory can also be used to understand children’s behaviors in informal learning sites such as science museums. In these settings the environment can influence children’s behaviors. For example, many ISLS have specific environments structured to foster learning, for example these sites include exhibits where children can engage in learning behaviors such as physically interacting with and manipulating structures (Sandifer, 2003; Shaby et al., 2017). Additionally, these exhibits often have educators present who will help children understand how to use these interactive exhibits and also encourage science conversations. Furthermore, social interactions between children and parents can also be influential for children’s behaviors. At these sites, parents’ behaviors can be especially important as they can help children learn and acquire new skills. For example, when parents used questions to guide their children’s learning, children were more likely to engage in scientific processes such as predicting and evaluating (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2018). Therefore, Social Cognitive Theory was applied to the current study to evaluate relationships between behaviors (parents’ questions and explanations), the environment (exhibit features and presence of an educator) and children’s learning in ISLS.

Traditionally, learning has been measured as an accumulation of new information (Hooper-Greenhill, 2003). However, in line with Social Cognitive Theory, children’s behaviors are also important indicators of learning (Bandura, 1986). In ISLS, behaviors such as observing the exhibit, engaging with the exhibit, asking questions, and giving explanations can demonstrate that children are learning.

Children can learn in ISLS by exploring an exhibit in many different ways. Barriault and Pearson (2010) considered behaviors such as observing the exhibit or physically interacting with the exhibit to be “initiation behaviors”–the first steps in learning. There are many opportunities for children to interact with the ISLS through physical manipulation of elements and/or participatory activities. Interactive exhibits in ISLS that place emphasis on hands on learning, have been shown to be very effective in promoting learning in children (Andre et al., 2017). Furthermore, hands-on exploration can also involve using prior knowledge to make connections or understand causal relationships (Legare, 2014). Therefore, children can engage with an exhibit through physical interaction or making connections to other knowledge. These experience-rich environments, that encourage children’s exploration, allow for the use of processes such as evaluation and comprehension, which have been associated with children’s cognitive development (French, 2004).

As indicated above, children’s social interactions in ISLS are essential for their learning. The conversations that children have with educators or their parents may allow them to think more deeply about the information in the exhibits. When children ask questions or give explanations, they explore and make meaning of new information and ideas (Barriault and Pearson, 2010). In these types of interactions children advance their understanding of the concepts encountered in the ISLS, which can promote their science engagement and learning. In the current study, we aim to examine how learning behaviors exhibited by children visiting ISLS with their family are associated with environmental factors, parental behaviors, as well as the prescence of an educator. Although some prior research has examined environmental factors, such as the exhibit features (Barriault and Pearson, 2010; Shaby et al., 2017), explored children’s learning with attention to the role of the parents (Benjamin et al., 2010; Callanan et al., 2020), and other research has examined children’s interactions with educators in ISLS (Shaby et al., 2019), scant research has attended to both caregivers and educators as well as environmental factors in concert.

In addition to considering the role of parents and educators, it may also be important to focus on environmental features when examining children’s learning in ISLS. Although we often think of learning environments with attention to formal classroom spaces, informal spaces are rich environments that can create opportunities for learning. When families visit ISLS, they are exposed to a range of ways to engage with novel environments in exhibits, providing ample opportunities for science learning to occur. Although many visitors report that the primary reason why they visit ISLS is for entertainment (Tofield et al., 2003), ISLS also provide opportunities for science learning (National Research Council, 2009; Shouse et al., 2010). Research has focused on the academic- and science-related outcomes of visiting ISLS, including attention to learning during school group (Tal and Morag, 2007; Shaby and Vedder-Weiss, 2019; Shaby et al., 2019) and family visits (Benjamin et al., 2010; Haden, 2010; Callanan et al., 2017, 2020; Pattison et al., 2018).

Students can gain critical science skills and have opportunities for practical application when they visit ISLS (Bell et al., 2009). Experiences in ISLS also provide other academic benefits including increased academic aspirations, increased interest in math and science, and feelings of competency in science (Lin and Schunn, 2016; Goff et al., 2019). Furthermore, there are often multiple interactive features in ISLS, and this interactivity is associated with longer visitor engagement (Sandifer, 2003; Shaby et al., 2017). Interactive exhibits may have features which children can physically interact with, whereas non-interactive exhibits facilitate observing behaviors. A study that analyzed parent-child dyads at an ISLS found that parents and children spent more time at exhibits that were interactive compared to non-interactive exhibits (Szechter and Carey, 2009). Therefore, interactive exhibits are critical for visitor engagement. Not only are the interactions with the exhibit influential, but the social interactions that occur in ISLS are also key factors associated with science learning in children. In the present study, we examined environmental factors across a range of different types of ISLS and exhibits, including exhibits in a zoo, a children’s museum and an aquarium. Thus, we further extend prior work, which has often examined children’s learning within one type of setting. Our aim was, in part, to document what environmental factors are associated with children’s learning across different types of settings and exhibits. This is a critical new direction for research as it can help to document best practices for museum design and exhibit development that reach across the silos that are often formed within particular types of learning settings.

Educators can aid visitor learning by providing explanations, asking questions, and instructing visitors on how to use the exhibit. For example, in one study, when educators gave tips on how to build a structure in a building activity, children used more science-related talk when recalling their museum visit compared to children who did not receive any tips (Haden et al., 2014). Additionally, Mulvey et al. (2020) found that child and adult visitors felt that they learned more from their experiences in ISLS after interacting with an educator rather than just the exhibit. Visitors in that study also reported greater interest in the topic after interacting with a youth educator compared to an adult educator. Educators also encourage learning by emotionally engaging with guests to increase interest in the exhibits (Shaby et al., 2019). Furthermore, another study found that, compared to visitors in a greeting condition, in which educators simply greeted guests when they approached an interactive math exhibit, visitors who interacted in more substantial ways with educators spent more time at the exhibit, felt more satisfied with their experience, and had a better understanding of the content, including mathematical reasoning in particular (Pattison et al., 2018). However, this study also found that, when educators were present, parents and children were less likely to communicate with each other. This suggests that in the presence of educators, instead of talking to each other, parents and children may direct questions and comments toward the educators which may hinder key parent-child interactions that are important for children’s learning. Therefore, it is important to explore both educators’ and parents’ behaviors in ISLS together.

Parent-child conversations can promote children’s learning (Crowley et al., 2001; Fender and Crowley, 2007). For example, in one study, parents’ use of explanatory conversations, such as providing scientific explanations or asking questions, was positively related to their children’s use of explanatory conversations at an evolution exhibit (Tare et al., 2011). These types of conversations can help keep children engaged and promote children’s scientific dialog. However, parents’ explanations and questions can elicit different behaviors for their children.

In a study exploring children’s and parents’ conversations in a museum, parents’ requests for explanations from their children were positively related to children’s engaged talk (requests and explanations), but parents’ explanations were negatively related to children’s engaged talk (Callanan et al., 2017). Furthermore, when parents were instructed to provide either scientific questions or statements, children whose parents asked more scientific questions responded more to their parents compared to children whose parents gave scientific statements (Chandler-Campbell et al., 2020). Additionally, when parents asked scientific questions, their children were more likely to answer with scientific responses. However, parents’ explanations have been shown to often be incomplete or incorrect (Snow and Kurland, 1996; Crowley et al., 2001) parents may not know enough about certain concepts to accurately explain them, which can create more confusion and misunderstanding for their children.

When parents ask their children questions, rather than just providing answers, they are more likely to create meaningful conversations (Callanan et al., 2017). Asking questions, especially open-ended questions, can help parents and other educators to understand what children know while facilitating children’s learning of new information (Haden, 2010). Although parents’ explanations may not always promote learning, children’s use of explanations can (Booth et al., 2020). Research has also shown that parents’ invitations to their children to provide their own causal explanations were related to their children’s scientific literacy (Booth et al., 2020). Thus, creating opportunities that allow children to think critically and engage with the material promotes children’s learning (Haden, 2010). The present study extends previous work on the effectiveness of parents’ explanations and requests on their children’s own scientific talk.

In this study we analyzed 31 video recordings of the interactions between children, their parents, educators and the exhibit itself. Thirteen of the videos had an educator present at the exhibit. Participants included 31 families of 63 children (∼60.3% female) and 44 parents (∼76.9% female). Twenty-one family groups included more than one child and the average number of children per family group was 2.03. We were unable to directly request demographic data from families and thus demographic information including age, gender, and ethnicity were coded based on inferences made by the research assistants coding the videos. We estimated that roughly 43% of youth visitors were in early childhood (3–8 years), 44% percent were in middle childhood (9–13 years), and 13% were 14 or older. We also estimated that roughly 60% of families were White. All participants spoke English in the videos.

This research was approved as Exempt by the Institutional Review Board at the University of South Carolina with an Inter-Institutional Agreement by North Carolina State University. Participants were recruited from three different ISLS: a zoo, an aquarium, and a children’s museum (see Table 1 for descriptions of exhibits) in the Southeastern United States. Signs were posted about the research project at the entrance to the exhibits and participants were invited to participate by a research assistant and provided with a notification letter about the study. If the family agreed to participate, they were asked to wear a microphone headset and were video recorded while visiting selected exhibits. Educators also wore a lapel microphone. Video cameras were placed in three locations at each exhibit to ensure that the full family visit was recorded.

All data were transcribed by trained research assistants and videos were coded in Atlas.ti (ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH) using a coding system developed based on those used in two prior studies (Barriault and Pearson, 2010; Callanan et al., 2017). Each interaction (see Table 2 for descriptions of measures coded) for each person was coded once in 30s intervals. For example, if a child asked two science requests in the first 30s of the video, the code of “science request” for that child was used once for that interval. Scores for each interaction type were determined by summing the instances of the behavior for parents and children during the time spent at the exhibit. Each video was coded by two research assistants, and the interrater reliability (as calculated in Atlas.ti) was 82.54%. The duration of each video ranged from 30 s to 7 min.

Since participants visited different ISLS sites, and as children were nested in family groups, multilevel modeling was used to account for the nesting of data. Furthermore, multi-level modeling approaches are robust with as few as 10 groups in level 2, especially if restricted maximum likelihood and the Satterthwaite approximation are used (Huang, 2018). Multilevel models were fit using the MIXED command in SPSS with restricted maximum likelihood and the Satterthwaite approximation in order to assess children’s science explanations, requests for science information, and whether they were engaging with the exhibit, and observing the exhibit. Educator condition (no educator, youth educator, adult educator), interactive exhibit (yes, no), parents’ science explanations, parents’ requests for science information, and duration spent at the exhibit were used as fixed effects. The site ID and family ID were used as random effects. The equations for the multilevel models were as follows:

The outcome for the ith visitor in the jth site and kth family group is modeled as main effect of parents’ science requests (γ₀₁), parents’ science explanations (γ₀₂), duration in seconds spent at the exhibit (γ₀₀₀), interactive exhibit (γ₀₀₂), and educator exhibit (γ₀₀₃), with γ₀₀ as the overall mean and u_0jk and u₀₀ as the family group and site residuals and e_0ijk as the individual residuals. This general equation was tested for each of the dependent variables (Table 3).

Parents gave more science explanations when an educator was not present, t(61) = 4.73, p < 0.001, and parents made less requests for science information when an educator was not present, t(61) = −2.54, p < 0.001. In fact, parents only made requests for science information when an educator was present. Children also gave more science explanations when an educator was not present, t(61) = 1.66, p = 0.001. Although not significant, children observed the exhibit more and made more requests for science information when an educator was present, however they engaged with the exhibit more when an educator was not present (Table 4). Additionally, children observing the exhibit was negatively associated with their exhibit engagement and positively associated with parents’ requests for science information (Table 5).

Parents’ science explanations (b = 0.74, t = 2.19, p = 0.04) and requests for science information (b = 0.54, t = 3.67, p = 0.001) were related to children observing the exhibit. When children were observing the exhibit, parents were more likely to request science information and give more science explanations. No other variables were significantly related to children observing the exhibit (Table 6).

Interactive exhibit (b = −1.56, t = −2.18, p = 0.04) and duration (b = 0.44, t = 3.72, p = 0.001) were significantly related to children engaging with the exhibit. If the exhibit was not interactive, children were less likely to engage with the exhibit and the longer children spent at the exhibit the more likely they were to engage with the exhibit. No other variables were significantly related to children engaging with the exhibit (Table 6).

Children’s requests for science information were not related to any of the variables (Table 6).

There was a significant effect of interactive exhibit (b = 0.31, t = 2.71, p = 0.01) on children’s science explanation. If the exhibit was not interactive, children were more likely to give science explanations. There was also a significant negative effect of parents’ science explanation (b = −0.29, t = −2.76, p = 0.01) on children’s science explanations. This suggests that the more parents gave science explanations the less children gave science explanations. No other variables were significantly related to children’s science explanation (Table 6).

As expected based on Social Cognitive Theory, we found that environment plays an important role in the types of learning behaviors children display. Children were more engaged, through physical interaction or providing additional information, with the exhibit when the exhibit included interactive elements. This is consistent with findings that show that when ISLS allow for exploration, visitors are more likely to be engaged through their interactions with the exhibits (Sandifer, 2003; Shaby et al., 2017). We also found that the longer children spent at an exhibit, the more likely they were to engage with the exhibit, which supports previous findings that visitors tend to spend more time at an exhibit that is interactive (Szechter and Carey, 2009). Hands-on exhibits like these, where children get to interact with the exhibits, can help facilitate the first steps of children’s learning (Barriault and Pearson, 2010). However, it is important to note that learning does occur in different ways. When exhibits were not interactive, children were more likely to provide scientific explanations. Thus, it may be that when children encounter non-interactive exhibits, they spend more time considering scientific concepts or generating explanations related to the exhibit content.

There were no significant relationships between the presence of educators and children’s behaviors. Although not significantly different, descriptive data showed a trend of children asking more science questions when an educator was present. For example, the following illustrates a conversation between a child and an adult educator at the gorilla exhibit at the zoo:

Therefore, future research may more carefully explore educator behaviors that encourage children’s requests for science information. As prior research has documented the relationship between educators and visitors’ understanding of science concepts and use of science related dialog (Haden et al., 2014; Pattison et al., 2018), it is important that future work continue to explore what types of learning educators foster. We also did not find differences based on whether an educator was present or not for children’s observation or any other outcomes. This may be because educators vary in the ways that they engage with visitors. For example, it may be interesting for future research to examine differences in educators’ use of science requests and explanations.

Also in alignment with Social Cognitive Theory, we found that parents’ behaviors, specifically their use of science explanations and requests for science information were related to children’s behaviors. Parents’ science explanations and requests for science information were positively related to children observing the exhibit. Instances where the child observes animals while parents explain or ask questions were common, since two of our sites were a zoo and an aquarium. Observing animals is a crucial part of these exhibits; thus, this behavior, in this context, may provide rich opportunities for learning. Previous research has shown that when visitors observed scientists conducting research with animals at an exhibit, they reported greater perceived learning (Waller et al., 2012). Through observing exhibits like these, children are able to learn about the animals’ needs, their environments, and research and conservation efforts to protect the species (Tofield et al., 2003).

Although we were unable to quantitatively analyze the data to indicate the directionality of the behaviors between parents and children, this example demonstrates that parents’ behaviors would often promote their children’s behaviors. The following interaction from the aquarium shows a parent’s explanation of science information preceding a child observing the exhibit.

Therefore, observations are important behaviors that allow for the opportunity to learn new information. Our findings reveal the important role of parents while children are observing exhibits–the more parents asked questions and provided science explanations, the more children observed the exhibit. This extends previous research by demonstrating that parents’ science explanations may offer some benefits by encouraging children to engage with exhibits through observation.

We also found that children were less likely to give science explanations when their parents gave science explanations. This finding supports previous research that showed that parents’ science explanations were negatively related to children’s requests and explanations (Callanan et al., 2017). Our finding suggests that for children to be more engaged with the exhibit and express their own knowledge, parents should consider offering fewer explanations and instead let their children lead the exploration more directly. This is demonstrated by the following interaction at the aquarium:

Interactions like this one allow the child to guide the discussion and display their own knowledge of the exhibit, which can create engaged conversations between parents and children.

Although there was not a significant effect of parents’ requests for science information on children’s science explanations, prior research has documented that asking children questions was related to more scientific and engaged talk from children (Callanan et al., 2017; Chandler-Campbell et al., 2020). However, previous research has also shown that many parents may not know what to ask their children or how to explain certain concepts (Snow and Kurland, 1996; Crowley et al., 2001), which is demonstrated in the example below from the flight exhibit at the children’s museum in which the child is using a flight simulator to fly a plane:

In this example the child asked their parent a science related question pertaining to the activity they are engaged in. The parent gives wavering science explanations–one of which is incorrect. This example demonstrates how parents may try to explain concepts but may not always have high perceptions of their own competence in, or foundational knowledge of, these domains. Therefore, providing parents with information regarding the exhibits may be helpful for these conversations.

Studies have shown that providing parents with information or prompts to guide their conversations with their children helps create parent-child conversations (Harris and Winterbottom, 2018). For example, when educators suggested that parents ask more “What?, Why?, Where?, and How?” parents asked twice as many questions to their children, compared to parents who did not receive any conversation instructions (Haden et al., 2014). Thus, instructions or suggestions that provide parents with examples of questions to ask could be very effective in creating conversations between parents and children.