Does living on farms influence the acquisition of biological concepts in childhood? An examination of the effects of environment, experiences, and parent communication on children’s biological concepts

Abstract

How and when children acquire knowledge about biological concepts is of great interest and importance for researchers in developmental and educational fields. Children’s early developing folk theories of biology provide a foundation for later formal learning about biology that happens in school, so understanding where and how early knowledge about biology is acquired can help in the development of effective educational materials for formally teaching biological concepts (Inagaki & Hatano, 1997, 2003, 2004, 2006). Children’s folk biology also informs their behaviour in everyday life, for instance, by determining how children think and respond to significant biological events such as the death of a pet or the birth of a sibling. Of particular interest is the developing understanding of natural processes such as birth, death, inheritance, and ecological relations. The biological concept of death is learned almost exclusively though informal experiences such as parental conversations, observations of nature, and personal experiences of death, because it is not a topic that is addressed in schools outside of “crisis” situations. Considering this, differences in the rate of acquisition of this fundamental biological concept would largely reflect the effects of sociocultural differences and informal experiences. As such, children’s developing understanding of death provides a unique opportunity to explore a biological concept which develops primarily through informal learning.This thesis comprises of three studies that combine to contribute to the existing literature on children’s biological concepts, in particular death. These studies seek to identify factors which influence the development of children’s biological concepts, to evaluate whether children living on farms differ in their biological understanding to those living in cities, and to assess the role of parental communication in children’s emerging understanding about death and dying.Participants consisted of 152 children aged between 3.8 - and 8.11 – years and their parents (n =139) living in central or south-east Queensland. Participants included families living on farms (n= 83) or in the city (n = 69). Children were individually interviewed to assess their ecological reasoning, death concepts, and formal science knowledge, while parents completed a self-report questionnaire about their child’s experiences with nature, death, and the lifecycle, and how they communicate about death and dying with their child. Study 1 explores the ecological, individual, and experiential factors which influence the development of children’s biological concepts, and the order in which children acquire the sub-concepts of death. Results indicate that children’s understanding of death, including each of the separate sub-concepts, and their formal science knowledge were all positively associated with children’s age. Children’s death concepts were significantly associated with religious belief, such that children from non-religious families demonstrated more accurate death understanding than religious children. Parental education and parental communication were also related to children’s death understanding, with parents with higher education or who communicated more effectively, having children with more mature death concepts.Study 2 explicitly compared farm and city children’s ecological reasoning, death understanding, and formal science knowledge. This study revealed that farm children were more inclined to demonstrate sophisticated ecological reasoning patterns. Study 2 also revealed a significant interaction between children’s rearing location and parents’ level of education, on the development of death concepts. City children whose parents were more highly educated, demonstrated more mature death concepts than city children whose parents had lower levels of education. However, no effects were observed for farm children’s death concepts relative to their parents’ level of education.Study 3 examined parental communication about death in greater detail to determine: (a) whether farm and city parents differ in their communication, (b) the relationship betweenchildren’s death understanding and parents’ communication, and (c) factors which influence how effectively parents communicate about death. No difference was observed between farm and city parents’ communication about death, irrespective of children’s age. Correlational analysis confirmed that even when age had been controlled, parental communication was significantly associated with children’s understanding of death, with more effective communication being correlated with more mature death concepts. Further examination found that parental communication was positively associated with the death sub-concepts of inevitability and irreversibility, but did not correlate significantly with children’s understanding of applicability, cessation or causality. Correlational analyses of ecological, individual, and experiential factors thought to influence parental communication identified several predictors of parents’ communication efficacy. Linear regression confirmed that religious affiliation, SES, and the number of deaths children had experienced predicted how effectively parents communicated about death and dying, such that parents who were not religious, from higher SES families, or whose children had experienced more deaths, had better communication. Mediation analysis was conducted to evaluate whether the significant effect of religious belief on children’s understanding of death was mediated by parental communication. Results confirmed that while a small mediation effect may occur, religious belief and parental communication contribute independently to children’s death understanding, with parental communication no longer being a significant predictor of children’s overall death understanding once religious belief has been taken into account.Taken together, the findings of the three studies confirm that children’s informal knowledge of biological concepts is linked to personal factors including age and religious beliefs, as well as environmental factors including rearing location and parental communication. We conclude with a consideration of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and discuss future directions of research.