Parent-Child Interaction Styles Relate to Preschooler’s Causal Play, Learning, and Generalization

Parental involvement plays an important role in children’s learning within everyday social contexts. This study investigated whether and how a brief instructional intervention affected parent-child interactions during play, and how parents’ and children’s behaviors impacted children’s learning during the play and subsequent independent exploration. Parents and their 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 72) engaged with causal toys, with parents assigned to one of three conditions: Teaching (teach the child), Helping (help the child), or No-involvement (watch the child). During the Interactive Phase, parent-child dyads had four minutes to explore the toys and figure out the causal rule together. This was followed by the Independent Phase, in which children explored a different set of toys with a new causal rule on their own for three minutes. Children's learning outcomes were assessed after each phase. Results indicated that parents in the No-involvement condition asked fewer questions and provided less feedback and encouragement compared to those in the Teaching and Helping conditions. However, there were no significant differences in parental behaviors between the Helping and Teaching groups. Across all conditions, parents’ use of questioning (particularly pedagogical questions) and guidance in helping children generate evidence during the interaction predicted better learning outcomes for children. These improved learning outcomes were even observed following children’s independent exploration, suggesting that guidance (in particular in the form of pedagogical questions) supports “learning to learn”.