Children's Search Research Articles

A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child's Search for Home by Maysa Odeh (review)

A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child's Search for Home by Maysa Odeh (review)

Eight-year-olds engaging in guided information searches with iPads: Dimensions of reading competence

This study examines how eight-year-old students engage in teacher-guided digital online reading during internet searches for specific information. The research focuses on the students' digital literacy and their ability to evaluate sources and decode complex text. We have used Luke and Freebody's four resources model and the concept of sourcing as theoretical underpinning. The study had a descriptive and exploratory approach. The study involved 17 eight-year-old students from a school with a one-to-one tablet policy. The students were divided into small groups to encourage interaction. Data were collected through audio and screen recordings and were multimodally transcribed to provide a detailed account of the children's internet search interactions. The study reveals that while students demonstrated proficiency in using digital tools and navigating the internet, they often struggled to assess source credibility and critically interpret the information they encountered. Furthermore, the study highlights the importance of guiding young students in navigating the complex media landscape, emphasizing the need to enhance their knowledge of different types of sources and the categories of individuals producing content. The researchers found that students' prior knowledge, such as familiarity with printed books, played a role in how they approached online reading, sometimes leading to difficulties in adapting their strategies for digital formats. In conclusion, this research underscores the need for explicit instruction and collaborative efforts in the classroom to develop students' digital reading skills and their ability to critically assess online sources, thus bridging the gap between technological proficiency and effective digital literacy. The findings offer insights for educators in preparing young readers for digital literacy and effective online information evaluation.

The differential impact of active learning on children's memory.

Successful active learning has often been quantified with respect to either the efficiency of information search or the accuracy of subsequent recall. In this article, we explored the hypothesis that children's memory is influenced by the types of information search strategies they implement, which may emphasize different aspects of the task stimuli. As a consequence, younger children's well-documented search inefficiency may turn out to be advantageous and result in better memory for some aspects of the task. In the current experiment, 5- to 10-year-old children (N = 124) played (active condition) or observed an agent play (passive condition) 20-questions games, and were then tested for their memory of several different aspects of the game both immediately after and a week later. Children showed overall improved recall in the active condition. Search efficiency was positively related to recall of the game's solution, but did not significantly impact performance on the other memory tests. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental differences in children and adults' enforcement of explore versus exploit search strategies in the United States and Turkey.

Across development, as children acquire a deeper understanding of their environment, they explore less and take advantage, or "exploit," what they already know. Here, we test whether children also enforce exploration-oriented search behaviors onto others. Specifically, we ask whether children are more likely to encourage a search agent to explore versus exploit their environment, and whether this pattern varies across childhood (between 3 and 6 years). We also ask whether this pattern differs between children and adults, and generalizes across two different sociocultural contexts-Turkey and the United States-that differ on dimensions that might relate to children's decisions about exploration (e.g., curiosity-focused educational practices, attitudes toward uncertainty avoidance). Participants (N=358) watched an agent search for rewards and were asked at various points whether the agent should "stay" (exploit) in their current location, or "go" (explore) to a new location. At all points in the experiment, children enforced exploration significantly more often than adults. Early in the agent's search, children in the US enforced exploration more often than children in Turkey; later in the search, younger children (from both sociocultural contexts) were more likely to continue enforcing exploration compared to older children. These findings highlight that children are not only highly exploratory themselves, but also enforce exploration onto others-underscoring the central role that exploration plays in driving early cognitive development across diverse sociocultural contexts. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: The current study examined developmental and cross-cultural differences in children and adults' enforcement of explore-exploit search strategies. Children in the US and Turkey enforced exploration more than adults, who enforced exploitation more often; results were generally consistent across cultures with small differences. Mirroring developmental changes in children's own search behavior; the tendency to enforce exploration decreased between 3- to 6-years of age. Findings underscore the central role of an "exploration mindset" in children's early decision-making-even when exploration has no direct benefits to the child themselves.

The Need for Children's Surgical Care Prioritisation in National Surgical Care Policies: A Systematic Review of National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthetic Plans (NSOAPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa

BackgroundChildren born in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have an 85 % risk of requiring surgical care by the age of 15 [1,2]. Yet, children's surgery has been largely neglected by global health policies. National Surgical Obstetric and Anaesthetic Plans' (NSOAPs) reflect countries' strategic health priorities, policies, and targets related to surgical care. This study assessed the prioritisation of children's surgical care in national surgical care policies in SSA. MethodsThis systematic review of national surgical care policies in SSA conducted in December 2022, analysed NSOAPs developed in SSA electronically for search terms “child∗”, “pediatric∗”, “paediatric∗” and evaluated manually for children's surgical care in relation to the NSOAP domains, health system building blocks, and surgical care. Policies were evaluated for collaboration. ResultsEight policies met the inclusion criteria. In the 797 (M = 99.63; SD = 34.83) text-containing pages analysed, there were 258 (15.5; 0–164) mentions of children's surgery search terms. Twenty-five percent (n = 2) of the NSOAPs dedicated sections to children's surgical care, 62.5 % (n = 5) mentioned children's surgery, and 12.5 % (n = 1) did not mention children's surgery. Children's surgery received citations in 25 % (n = 2) of backgrounds, 37.5 % (n = 3) of situational analyses, 87.5 % (n = 7) of strategic frameworks, 37.5 % (n = 3) of monitoring and evaluation, and 25 % (n = 2) of the costing sections. Overall, 62.5 % (n = 5) of countries included a children's surgery stakeholder. ConclusionNSOAPs are a pragmatic measure of national surgical care priorities. Our findings suggest children's surgery is not widely recognised even where commitments to improving surgical care exist. Greater prioritisation of children's surgery is needed in surgical policy development.

“A bundle of serendipity”: A crowdsourcing program for picture book information organization oriented toward preschool children

Mainstream taxonomy schemas in public libraries are not suitable for children's book organization or children's book search behavior. In this study, the researchers developed a picture book organization schema from preschool children's perspective through an online crowdsourcing and reading advocacy program. According to 691 valid descriptions from 67 children, a total of 1064 open codes, 30 selective codes, and 3 dimensions were generated. Preschool children frequently used search elements including animal, title, item, person, plot/theme, place, and front cover. Children's title use behavior is discussed. This study partially reinforces previous findings about preschool children's search strategies for known picture books. The findings could advance knowledge of preschool children's information behavior and be used in preschool-children-oriented picture book information organization.

Preschoolers' information search strategies: Inefficient but adaptive.

Although children's sensitivity to others' informativeness emerges early in life, their active information search becomes robustly efficient only around age 10. Young children's difficulty in asking efficient questions has often been hypothesized to be linked to their developing verbal competence and growing vocabulary. In this paper, we offer for the first time a quantitative analysis of 4- to 6-year-old children's information search competence by using a non-verbal version of the 20-questions game, to gain a more comprehensive and fair picture of their active learning abilities. Our results show that, even in this version, preschoolers performed worse than simulated random agents, requiring more queries to reach the solution. However, crucially, preschoolers performed better than the simulated random agents when isolating the extra, unnecessary queries, which are made after only one hypothesis is left. When additionally isolating all the unnecessary queries, children's performance looked on par with that of the simulated optimal agents. Our study replicates and enriches previous research, showing an increase in efficiency across the preschool-aged years, but also a general lack of optimality that seems to be fundamentally driven by children's strong tendency to make unnecessary queries, rather than by their verbal immaturity. We discuss how children's non-optimal, conservative information-search strategies may be adaptive, after all.

“There is a gorilla holding a key on the book cover”: Young children's known picture book search strategies

AbstractThere is no information search system can assist young children's known picture book search needs since the information is not organized according to their cognitive abilities and needs. Therefore, this study explored young children's known picture book search strategies and extracted picture book search elements by simulating a search scenario and playing a picture book search game. The study found 29 elements children used to search for known picture books. Then, these elements are classified into three dimensions: The first dimension is the concept category of an element. The second dimension is an element's status in the story. The third dimension indicates where an element appears in a picture book. Additionally, it revealed a young children's general search strategy: Children first use auditory elements that they hear from the adults during reading. After receiving error returns, they add visual elements that they see by themselves in picture books. The findings can not only help to understand young children's known‐item search and reformulation strategies during searching but also provide theoretical support for the development of a picture book information organization schema in the search system.

Impact of Amblyopia on Visual Attention and Visual Search in Children.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to compare binocular visual attention, visual processing speeds, and visuo-cognitive search ability in children with and without amblyopia and investigate the association of visual acuity and binocular function with these measures.MethodsParticipants included 20 children with amblyopia (mean age = 9.0 ± 1.2 years; 15 anisometropic and 5 strabismic) and 20 children with normal vision development (9.5 ± 1.7 years). Vision assessment included visual acuity (monocular and binocular) and binocular function (Worth 4 Dot and Randot Preschool Stereotest). Visual attention and processing speeds were assessed using the three subtests of the Useful Field of View (UFOV; central processing, divided attention, and selective attention). Visuo-cognitive search was measured using static and dynamic presentations of the Trail Making Tests (TMTs), parts A and B, with increasing levels of executive function demand. All children performed these tasks binocularly.ResultsChildren with amblyopia demonstrated slower visual processing times on the UFOV (P = 0.04), and slower completion times on the TMT search tests (P = 0.014), compared to controls. TMT performance for children with amblyopia was also more negatively impacted with increasing executive function demands on the TMT part B, compared to controls (P = 0.005). Binocular visual acuity was associated with TMT (P = 0.006) and UFOV (P = 0.07) performance, but none of the other visual function measures were related to performance on these tasks.ConclusionsChildren with amblyopia exhibit deficits in higher-order visual processing skills, including visual attention and visual search, particularly with increasing executive function demands. These findings have implications for understanding the impact of amblyopia on everyday function in children.

How Family's Support of Perseverance in Creative Efforts Influences the Originality of Children's Drawing During the Period of COVID-19 Pandemic?

This study points out that families' support of perseverance in creative efforts will increase children's originality of creative drawing through children's persistence in information searching. Data analysis based on 134 Chinese young children's creative drawings and survey supports the above hypothesis. Moreover, children's exposure to COVID-19 pandemic positively moderates the relationship between supporting perseverance and children's search persistence, such that high exposure to COVID-19 pandemic will increase the positive relationship between support of perseverance and search persistence. And children's prosocial motivation inhibits the influence of search persistence on originality. Contributions to the theory of children's creativity are discussed.

Сохранение здоровья детей: поиск путей решения актуальных проблем

Changed social reality, caused by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19), made attention to population's health, its risks, and defining factors relevant. Nowadays, an individual's personal responsibility for own health and coherence of various social institutions' activities in the formation of children's health are of particular importance. The article is devoted to an analysis of children's health and search for the ways of its improvement. The authors explore the issues of availability and quality of medical services, safeguard of children's health and discuss the barriers to inter-institutional cooperation in this field, as well as ways of overcoming them. To achieve these objectives, we used quantitative and qualitative sociological methods: a sociological survey of families with children aged 3-17 years, monitoring observation of cohorts of families with children, focus group studies of parents of children aged 3-17 years, an expert survey of specialists of the regional health system and members of government authorities. The authors reveal several issues: decline of children's health potential in growing;insufficient awareness of parents about the state, forms, and methods of preserving and strengthening children's health, discrepancy between parents' ideas about their own competence in this matter with reality;lack of narrow-profile specialists in children's medical institutions;absence of medical workers among fulltime staff of educational organizations;queues and complexity of making appointments with specialists;low availability of free and high cost of paid medical services;insufficient information interaction between medical, educational organizations and parents in the prevention of diseases;lack of parents' knowledge of full information about objectives of professional examinations and insufficient awareness of the importance of further actions to restore and strengthen health of children. Based on the analysis, we stated the areas of solving these problems. They may include the development and implementation of specific management tools to preserve children's health potential.

Libras Humor: Playing with the Internal Structure of Signs

This article focuses on humor in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) used by Deaf children and adults, investigating the relationship between language play and humor in Libras and its role in Deaf culture. Despite research in other sign languages (for example, in American, British, Italian, and Portuguese Sign Languages), academic research has not yet explored this important concept in Libras. Following Bergson's (2003) ideas about the foundations of humor and building on pioneering work on humor in sign languages by Klima and Bellugi (1979) and later Morgado (2011), we explore a range of examples of Libras humor. We consider those created through exaggeration and imitation and through modification of parameters to better understand the fundamentals of humor in Libras. We then apply our understanding of the role of handshape and exaggeration in Libras humor to the creation of short playful stories to serve as educational materials for young Deaf children and those acquiring Libras, considering its role in the construction of their understanding of their world experience as Deaf people. How young Deaf children relate language play to their interpretation of reality shows the importance of introducing them to humorous signing, and it highlights ways to help Deaf children's search for self-representation. We conclude that humor in Libras is a fundamental way for Deaf people of all ages to express their Deaf selves and life experiences.

The false trade‐off of relevance for safety in children's search systems

ABSTRACTSince the wide adoption of the Internet in public schools and libraries, parents, educators and caregivers have been concerned about the safety and efficacy of children's search practice, often willing to accept diminished information quality to ensure that young searchers do not encounter illicit materials. In this study, part of a broader examination of youth search practices in the early years, we demonstrate that “safe”, child‐oriented search engines provide less relevant results, while failing to keep children from the unfiltered Web, the narrow definition of safety proffered by the sites themselves. Based on our findings, we suggest that the rhetorics of these search tools present a false trade‐off and may actually hinder inquiry practice, as opposed to supporting safe and developmentally appropriate access to online materials.

Internalising symptoms and verbal working memory in school-age children: A processing efficiency analysis.

The current study investigated differential contributions of internalising symptoms (state anxiety, trait anxiety, depression) to school-age children's verbal short-term (STM) and working memory (WM) span accuracy and efficiency (microanalysis of response times). Children's (N = 125, Mage = 11.44 years) STM/WM was assessed with simple/complex span tasks. Our analyses revealed that: (a) children with high levels of state anxiety displayed reduced simple span accuracy (on Word span) and poorer efficiency on both simple (preparatory intervals, interword pauses) and complex span (preparatory intervals) response time segments; (b) trait anxiety was a negative predictor of children's complex span accuracy, as well as their efficiency on both simple (word durations) and complex span (interword pauses) response time measures; (3) depressive symptoms predicted longer simple span interword pauses. Findings indicate that while all internalising symptoms were predictive of children's poorer memory search efficiency, especially during the "silent", executive intervals (interword pauses), anxiety symptoms were specifically predictive of children's impaired span accuracy and other efficiency indicators (preparatory intervals, word durations). The study highlights the differential contributions of state, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms to STM/WM in children, emphasising the need to measure both accuracy and efficiency to assess the role that such symptoms play in children's performance.

Dziecięce konstrukcje świata w rozmowach z dorosłymi

The text is based on research carried out among schoolchildren of third class of primary school. It shows a way of thinking about the world typical of children and constructing their social knowledge. The text was produced as a result of series of meetings with schoolchildren of 1–3 classes and the struggle to find answers to their questions of social, existential, ethical and moral nature. It reflects childlike concepts of social knowledge. It is based on quality tests results conveyed with the usage of dialogue method. In the theoretical part there are assumptions of interpretive paradigm and theses about social interactionist theory, linguistic relativism and social and psychological constructivism as a background for the discussion. The concept of the research includes the characteristics and justification for the application of the dialogue method and in addition to that, it gives insight into the results of the research which is the reconstruction of the image of the world typical of children and reconstruction of the meanings given to social ideas by children during their conversations with adults. The research part includes the image of the world constructed by children with excerpts from their utterances, from their ways of understanding the world, their perception of their environment. It is divided into parts entitled: ‘Children search’, ‘Children think’, ‘Children speak’, ‘Children construct’. Each part is packed with children’s hot knowledge, their experience and their ways of understanding the world.

Sources of developmental change in the efficiency of information search.

Children are active learners: they learn not only from the information people offer and the evidence they happen to observe, but by actively seeking information. However, children's information search strategies are typically less efficient than those of adults. In two studies, we isolate potential sources of developmental change in how children (7- and 10-year-olds) and adults search for information. To do so, we develop a hierarchical version of the 20-questions game, in which participants either ask questions (Study 1) or test individual objects (Study 2) to discover which category of objects within a nested structure (e.g., animals, birds, or owls) has a novel property. We also develop a computational model of the task, which allows us to evaluate performance in quantitative terms. As expected, we find developmental improvement in the efficiency of information search. In addition, we show that participants' performance exceeds random search, but falls short of optimal performance. We find mixed support for the idea that children's inefficiency stems from difficulty thinking beyond the level of individual objects or hypotheses. Instead, we reveal a previously undocumented source of developmental change: Children are significantly more likely than adults to continue their search for information beyond the point at which a single hypothesis remains, and thus to ask questions and select objects associated with zero information gain. This suggests that one crucial source of developmental change in information search efficiency lies in children's "stopping rules." (PsycINFO Database Record

Talking or Keeping Silent About Parental Mental Health Problems-A Grounded Theory of Parents' Decision Making and Experiences with Their Children.

This grounded theory study explored parents' experiences of responding to their children's need for understanding parental mental health concerns. Fifteen parents with severe and enduring mental health difficulties participated in the study. The findings suggest four main social processes that influence parents' talk with their children about parental mental health issues, namely "Protecting and being protected," "Responding to children's search for understanding," "Prioritizing family life," and "Relating to others." Implications of the findings for clinical practice and future research are considered. In particular, the need for more family-orientated services where parents experience parental mental health problems is highlighted.

The Impact of Concurrent Noise on Visual Search in Children With ADHD

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a concurrent “white noise” stimulus on selective attention in children with ADHD. Method: Participants were 33 children aged 7 to 14 years, who had been previously diagnosed with ADHD. All children completed a computer-based conjunction search task under two noise conditions: a classroom noise condition and a classroom noise + white noise condition. The white noise stimulus was sounds of rain, administered using an iPhone application called Sleep Machine. Results: There were no overall differences between conditions for target detection accuracy, mean reaction time (RT), or reaction time variability (SD). The impact of white noise on visual search depended on children’s medication status. Conclusion: White noise may improve task engagement for non-medicated children. White noise may be beneficial for task performance when used as an adjunct to medication.

The Development of Reflection Through Learning

The article introduces a famous labyrinth task used to demonstrate children's different approaches to learning tasks. The author connects reflection to children's questions concerning personal learning tasks beyond teacher assignments. She assigns a special role in this to child's personal search in charting the limits of the unknown. Child's active exploration should focus on new methods. Development of reflection in the frame of developmental teaching sets new paradoxical requirements to teachers.

Transmission of Cognitive Bias and Fear From Parents to Children: An Experimental Study

This study explored the role of parents in the development of a cognitive bias and subsequent fear levels in children. In Experiment 1, nonclinical children ages 8–13 (N = 122) underwent a training during which they worked together with their mothers on an information search task. Mothers received instructions to induce either a positive or negative information search bias in their children. Experiment 2 investigated to what extent mothers own cognitive bias predicted children's information search bias. Mothers of 49 nonclinical children ages 9–12 received no explicit training instructions before working together with their child on an information search task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that mothers had a significant impact on children's cognitive bias and fear. More precisely, children who had received a negative parental training displayed an increase in negative information search bias and fear, whereas children who had received a positive parental training showed an increase in positive information search bias and a decrease in fear. In Experiment 2, it was found that children's information search biases after working together with their mothers were predicted by their mothers' initial cognitive bias scores. These findings can be taken as support for the intergenerational transmission of cognitive biases from mothers to children.