Parent Guidance of Young Children’s Scientific and Mathematical Reasoning in a Science Museum

Despite increased attention to math and science education in the United States, relatively few studies have explored parent guidance of young children’s mathematical and scientific reasoning in everyday activities. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of providing explicit guidance instructions on parent guidance and young children’s reasoning during joint exploration in a science museum exhibit. Participating families were randomly assigned to an instruction group provided with specific guidance suggestions related to conservation of volume, or a control group who received no additional information but were reminded to read posted instructional signs. Findings indicated that all parents incorporated math talk into their conversations and fostered scientific reasoning by encouraging children to predict and evaluate, though the nature of their explanations and the amount of guidance provided differed widely. Parents in the instruction group provided more total guidance, asked significantly more why and how questions, and discussed the complexity of the size of the containers more frequently than parents in the control group. Children in the instruction group had a greater percentage of correct responses to explaining and reasoning prompts as compared with control group children. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the ways that parent–child conversations in informal settings support children’s developing mathematical and scientific reasoning. Implications for museums are considered.