Do Guardian Characteristics Impact Children’s Interaction with Museum Exhibits?
Lois Page, Avery Hoover, and Julia Milo, Slippery Rock University
Supervisor: Dr Elizabeth Boerger

Introduction
• This poster describes a project conducted as part of a
non-credit seminar (DeVenture – Developmental
Enrichment Venture) for students in the Psychology
Developmental Concentration.
• Students are learning naturalistic observation skills
through the process of operationalizing variables and
developing a coding scheme and instrument related to
parent-child interactions at the museum.
• Developmental psychologists are interested in how
children learn in a variety of social contexts.
• Museum exhibits are designed to promote interaction
with materials and prompt conversations to support
learning.
• The purpose of the present study was to determine
whether there was a relationship between guardian
characteristics and how children interacted with the
Sun, Earth, and Moon museum exhibit at the Carnegie
Science Center.

Research Questions
1.Is there a relationship between the guardian’s gender
and the child’s on task or off task behavior?

2.Is there a correlation between the guardian’s age and
the quality of the child's interactions?

Photos of Observation

Method
Sample
149 children who were observed at the Carnegie Science
Center. Some of the participants had missing values on
relevant variables
Demographics of Sample:
•Research question 1: n=116
•Research question 2: n=124
Preliminary Analyses
Do ed_ontask and ne_offtask measure the same thing?
• r (147)= -.700
• They are significantly correlated but are not the same
thing
• We chose to examine the association between gender
and each variable separately
Do all variables measuring quality of interaction form a
reliable scale?
• α=.538
• The reliability result indicates these should not be
used as the same scale
• We chose to look at three of the items individually
ed_sustained, ed_ap_phy, ed_interact_others_exb

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Guardian’s gender was measured with gender_adult
(male, female, other)
On task was measured with ED_ontask

Behaviors that were coded as on task included focused
interaction with the station, sustained interest in the
station, and appropriate physical interaction with station.
Off task was measured with NE_offtask

Behaviours that were coded as off task included running,
rapidly switching between stations, and playing with
others with no interest in station.
Research question 2
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Is guardian’s gender associated with off task behavior?
• Χ squared (2, Ν=116)= 4.443 ns
Is guardian’s gender associated with on task behavior?
• Χsquared (2, Ν=116)= 2.44 ns
Is there a relation between guardian’s age and the quality
of the child’s interactions?
• We ran a one-way ANOVA between age_adult and
each of these three variables: ED_sustained,
ED_ap_phy, and Ed_interaction_others_exb to
examine the effect of guardian age on the quality of
the child’s educational interactions with the exhibit.
All of these analyses were non-significant.

Discussion
•

There is no relation between guardian’s gender and
whether the child was on task.

•

Guardian’s age is not related to these aspects of the
quality of the child's interaction.

•

The measurement of guardian’s gender and age was
based on the individual’s appearance and could have
been incorrect.

Research question 1

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TEMPLATE DESIGN © 2008

Results

Guardian’s age was measured with age_adult (young,
mid, older)
Quality of interactions was measured with,
ED_ontask, ED_ap_phy, ED_sustained,
ED_interact_others_exb, ED_unrelated_int

•

The scores used to measure the aspects of educational
interactions were dichotomous, just 1 or 0. These
scores did not capture continuous variation, so they
may not have been fine grained to show an effect.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the students who
participated in the observations and data entry:
o Darian Humer
o Kayla Mayers
o Meredith Willard
o Sydney Kreskonko
o Cassie Oleksak
o Kandis Shamblin
o BayLee Lehr
In addition, we would like to thank Drs Emily
Keener and Catherine Massey for their assistance
with the project.