College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Reframing Children's Judgments of Consensus Reliability as a Process of Information Aggregation(2023) Levush, Karen Carmel; Butler, Lucas P; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Consensus is a compelling cue to the truth value of a given claim, but certain consensus patterns provide stronger evidence than others. This dissertation examines the developmental trajectory of children’s reasoning about the epistemic value of diverse perspectives for consensus’ reliability. One-hundred forty-four children between the ages of 7 and 9, as well as 48 adults, were introduced to a novel planet and alien groups that live there. Tasked with learning the “right things” about why various natural phenomena occur on this planet, participants were asked which one of two consensus groups, each of whom collectively thought something different, was the “better” group to ask. Participants rated their relative preference for one consensus group over another using a 6-point scale and were asked to explain their reasoning. These findings provide initial evidence that qualitative changes in children’s ability to consider how dependencies can lead to redundant information parallel the developmental shift in children’s appreciation for interpretive diversity in middle childhood.Item Contextual factors in children's and adolescents' predictions and evaluations of interracial peer encounters(2021) Burkholder, Amanda Rose; Killen, Melanie; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Direct experiences with peers of different races create possibilities for cross-race friendships and reduce racial prejudice and bias. Yet, interracial friendships remain rare in childhood, and decline by early adolescence. Therefore, an essential avenue for research in developmental science is to understand the conditions under which positive interracial encounters are maintained in childhood and adolescence, as these experiences may combat prejudicial attitudes and mitigate discriminatory behavior later in life. Children’s and adolescents’ willingness to engage in interracial peer encounters is not unidimensional, and research targeting how children and adolescents reason about interracial peer encounters provides a window into expectations about these relationships. The present dissertation includes a collection of three empirical papers that each explore contextual factors that influence children’s evaluations, predictions, and preferences in interracial peer encounters. Empirical Paper 1 disentangled children’s evaluations of interracial and interwealth exclusion using a design that focused either on race, controlling for wealth, or wealth, controlling for race. Empirical Paper 2 investigated how children’s and adolescents’ own racial group memberships influenced their predictions and preferences for interracial inclusion within a multi-group context that included information about wealth. Empirical Paper 3 examined the effect of parental and peer messages on children’s and adolescents’ predictions of interracial inclusion. Together, these papers provide evidence that during the interracial peer encounter, the presence of a multi-group context and socializing agents are vital to consider in order to understand, predict, and intervene on children’s and adolescents’ decisions and preferences for interracial peer contact. Discovering the emergence of and age-related changes to attitudes about interracial peer encounters in childhood, and the contextual factors that influence them, will provide valuable information for reducing stereotypes and biases as well as promoting positive peer relationships in childhood.Item Who Will Verify Their Claims?: Investigating the Influence of Group Membership on Children's Expectations About Others' Empirical Practices.(2018) Levush, Karen Carmel; Butler, Lucas P; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The technological landscape of today allows for almost instantaneous global circulation and retrieval of testimonial claims. Children and adults alike are increasingly faced with the task of evaluating claims’ reliability without an ability to assess the validity of the process by which that knowledge is acquired. Expectations of a standard of empirical practice may vary based on the identity of the informant and can thus guide to whom we ascribe epistemic trust. The current studies examine whether 4- to 7-year-old children extend expectations of others’ standard of empirical practice differentially to minimal group members. In both the Pilot (N=36) and Main Experiment (N=96), children were randomly assigned to one of two color groups. We tested whether children’s attributions of verification behaviors were informed by their preference for and perceived similarity to ingroup members. We found that children were just as likely to ascribe verified and unverified claims to ingroup members as they were to outgroup members. A number of possible explanations for this finding is discussed, laying groundwork for an important line of research studying the relation between children’s expectations of others’ standard of empirical practice and perceptions of trustworthiness.Item Age-Related Changes in Children’s Associations of Economic Resources and Race(Frontiers, 2016-06-16) Elenbaas, Laura; Killen, MelanieAge-related changes in children’s associations of economic resources and race were investigated. The sample (N = 308) included 5–6 year-olds (n = 153, M = 6.01 years, SD = 0.33 years) and 10–11 year-olds (n = 155, M = 11.12 years, SD = 0.59 years) of African–American (n = 93), European–American (n = 92), Latino (n = 62), Asian– American (n = 23), and multi-racial or multi-ethnic (n = 26) background. Participants matched pairs of target children (African–American and European–American) with visual indicators of low, middle, and high economic status. Children’s associations of economic resources with racial groups changed with age, and reflected different associations at high, middle, and low levels of the economic spectrum. Specifically, children associated targets of both races with middle economic status at a comparable rate, and with age, increasingly associated targets of both races with indicators of middle economic status. By contrast, both younger and older children associated African–American targets with indicators of low economic status more frequently than European–American targets. Finally, children associated African–American targets with indicators of high economic status less frequently with age, resulting in a perceived disparity in favor of European–American targets at high economic status among older children that was not present among younger children. No differences were found by participants’ own racial or ethnic background. These results highlight the need to move beyond a dichotomized view (rich or poor) to include middle economic status when examining children’s associations of economic resources and race.