CSUMB researchers studying scientific thinking in early childhood

By Mark Muckenfuss

In this particular version of a dry lab, the scientists sometimes have difficulty sharing. The pace of their experiments in robotics and engineering can be frenetic and often a bit chaotic. Once in a while, the frustration leads to tears. But what can you expect from 3-year-olds?

Cal State Monterey Bay researcher Tess Shirefley thinks we can expect more than you might think. The assistant professor of human development and family science is in the midst of a study looking at how young children exhibit the kind of creative and logical thinking we often don’t expect until later years. She has been capturing video and data on a group of preschoolers at Monterey Peninsula College’s Child Development Center who are doing robotics programming through the regional STEAM program, SparkMakers. She is studying their problem-solving, persistence, and emotional regulation abilities.  

“I’ve long known that kids are capable of this, but to get it on film and quantify it is exciting,” Shirefley said. “We’re really going to be looking at how they are engaged in learning, how they are navigating the social emotional components, how do they avoid a giant meltdown when it’s really frustrating.”

Shirefley has focused her research program on the foundations for scientific thinking that she sees exhibited in young children. This study will expand that research by also looking at the soft skills children exhibit and develop as they work together in teams to build and code drive-bots. The students have had to learn simple coding to control the vehicles, along with some basic engineering – much of it through trial and error.

“Are we ready for another robot adventure?” preschool teacher Kelly Warner asks the 13 children crowded around several low-level tables in her classroom.

The students provide a resounding “Yay!” and clap their hands. 

Soon, the Lego vehicle chassis are adorned with multicolored appendages. Some are random, expressive designs. Others seem more purposeful, such as one that sticks up vertically and has appendages much like a space station. 

SparkMaker instructor Talmon Owens leans in to provide advice to one student intently focused on his own creation. 

“We’re not doing our own,” he says, gently. “We’re working as a team. The idea is to work together to make a robot we all like.”

Some students discover the mechanism in the remote that makes the vehicle move. 

“Look what I found,” says one boy, who then pushes a button. “Whoa!” shout his teammates as their car jumps forward.

Watching all this is Elizabeth “Lizzy” Schmidt, who is assisting in the research. Schmidt is entering her senior year at CSUMB as a human development and family science major. 

“I really gravitated toward this because I believe that most people are scientists even though they may not think about themselves as scientists,” Schmidt said. “The kids ask a lot of incredible questions.”

She and Shirefley set up five to six iPads on tripods and place small microphones on each child to record the sessions from the side of the room. Although the regular preschool staff and SparkMakers instructors provide hands-on support and encouragement to the children, the researchers don’t interact with them. Once they have finished collecting the data, the two will spend hours evaluating the videos and the actions of their subjects.

“It’s very time-consuming and tedious work,” Shirefley said, adding that she is hoping to recruit half a dozen other students to help with the analysis. “There’s so much richness to it that you can investigate for many different questions.”

Shirefley said she is looking for not only how the students solve problems cognitively, but also socially. 

“Last week they were doing some coding of these little robotic mice,” she said. “They were regulating themselves not to push all the buttons at once. They were also working together, doing all these really interesting team things.”

The study, she said, will help fill a gap.

“There is very little research with this kind of programming with really little kids,” she said. “We think about these science skills and these soft skills as being shaped in elementary school from formalized education. But kids already have the foundations of that in preschool. By incorporating things that are really play-based, that’s a way of developing those skills, giving children an opportunity to practice them. 

“[The study] is becoming a research collaboration, teaching collaboration, and potential industry collaboration,” she added, “which is kind of the CSUMB way.”

Student research is also part of the CSUMB way and Schmidt’s participation has been aided by support from the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Center. The UROC program has helped her tap into several sources of funding to pay for her time gathering data. It’s a facet of the university she’s come to appreciate, since transferring from Santiago Community College near her home in Los Alamitos. 

“I didn’t fully understand the extent of research on this campus,” Schmidt said, adding that she is also involved in another project that is looking at physiological responses in competitive e-game players. “I think that the studies, along with my mentorships, will set me up for my future goals and my future career.

“I think I want to pursue research,” she added. 

She’s preparing to apply to grad school and expects she’ll end up in education, either as a professor, a researcher or both. The current study, she said, is a good start for the kinds of things she’s interested in pursuing, such as the way we learn, even from a young age.

“I think the most interesting thing to me,” she said, “is seeing how willing the children are to explore something they don’t know.”