Exploring the Foundations of Early Scientific Literacy: Children's Causal Stance

From an early age, children show a keen interest in discovering the causal structure of the world around them. Given how fundamental causal information is to scientific inquiry and knowledge, this early emerging "causal stance" might be important in propelling the development of scientific literacy. However, currently little is known about the development of children's causal stance, or how it might relate to concurrent or subsequent scientific literacy. In this study, 153 children from diverse backgrounds were evaluated at 3, 4, 5, and 6 years of age. Results demonstrate that causal stance at 3 years of age consistently predicted scientific literacy at each wave of data collection, extending through preschool, kindergarten, and into first grade. This relation was particularly pronounced across the earliest 2 measurement time-points, when children's causal stance predicted growth in scientific literacy above and beyond initial scores. The reciprocal relation did not hold: scientific literacy did not predict future causal stance. Implications for school readiness and early STEM engagement are discussed.