Why are they learning Wimzy?

For 5- to 10-year-olds who speak English

In this session, your child will listen to a story about three alien friends who live on a faraway planet and are learning a new skill called Wimzy at school. Each friend has a different reason for wanting to learn. After hearing their stories, your child will answer a few simple questions about how those reasons might affect how well the characters learn.

Children often have different reasons for wanting to learn something. Some may enjoy the learning itself, others may want to achieve important goals like going to college in the future, and some may try to learn to please their parents or teachers. Research shows that these different reasons—or motivations—can lead to different outcomes, such as how well someone performs and how long they persist when learning gets hard.

In this study, we’re exploring whether children understand that people can have different reasons for learning, and how they think those reasons might affect how well someone learns. This helps us better understand how children think about motivation and what they believe supports successful learning.

15 minutes

Families will receive one entry for a draw to win a $20 Amazon.com gift card (used for US Amazon.com only) for every child who participates in the study and meets the reliability criteria. Children must be visible in the consent video in order to be eligible to be entered into the draw. Children can only participate in this study once. The draw will be run for every 10 participants, and winners will be notified within 2 weeks of participating.