Doctorant F/H How curiosity enhances learning across childhood and adolescence: Models and experimentation of the role of metacognition and agency

In a constantly changing world full of uncertainties, one way to adapt to unforeseen circumstances is by harnessing lifelong learning driven by curiosity - the desire to acquire information about the world. Initial research suggests that curiosity not only enhances learning but also metacognitive awareness of one’s own learning progress strengthens curiosity. However, the reciprocal influences between curiosity-based learning and metacognition, particularly during late childhood and adolescence when both abilities continue to develop, remain poorly understood. To address this gap in the existing literature, our interdisciplinary approach aims to explore the bidirectional connections between curiosity-based learning and metacognition during this crucial developmental period. Additionally, late childhood and adolescence is marked by increasing needs of agency, which can boost the curiosity effects on learning because the learner is in control of the learning material. We will therefore seek to study how the protracted development of metacognition enhances the efficiency of curiosity-based learning, especially in situations of high agency. To this end, we will conduct a series of five experiments, leveraging complementary skills and approaches of world-leading research teams around curiosity and development. We will combine different methodological approaches, including behavioral experiments and functional neuroimaging, training studies, and longitudinal assessments to investigate how across-person differences and within- person changes in metacognition and agency contribute to curiosity-based learning across late childhood and adolescence. We will leverage established and recently developed experimental and naturalistic paradigms from our labs to understand how metacognition affects curiosity-based learning across development. Furthermore, we will translate the lab-based findings from the proposed experiments to design pedagogical interventions that stimulate curiosity and metacognition in the classroom. This is a timely and innovative project as recent research provides all the building blocks needed for a step change in our understanding of the mechanisms of curiosity development. The complementary perspectives of the three pioneering teams (Cardiff, Bordeaux, Trier) provide a unique collaborative opportunity to combine parallel research domains to generate important discoveries on the development of curiosity- based learning with broad scientific and societal impact.