Keeping Kids Interested in Science Is a Matter of Language

As children get older, their understanding of science and being a scientist changes. The words adults use are a critical part of keeping them engaged in discovery

Illustration of a young child holding a magnifying glass surrounded by beakers and laboratory equipment

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One of the best parts of being a parent has to be watching children discover the world around them. After all, kids are endlessly curious, and part of the fun is seeing the wonder on their faces as they learn about even simple objects and ideas. “What’s that in your hand? Is it—a ball? Do you think it will roll down this hill?” you might ask your toddler. Then you get to enjoy their shouts of delight as they explore just that. This is science in action—making an observation, testing an idea, seeing what happens and then asking the next question.

Yet over time parents may find that their child is becoming less interested in exploring the world around them and less likely to investigate the underlying “why” of things—that is, less curious about science. Why does this shift happen?

There are, of course, a number of different factors at play, but in the research my colleagues and I have done, we have found something that might surprise some folks: this loss of interest may be partly the result of subtle language cues children hear. And these cues don’t come just from parents; they can also come from media kids consume or from schoolteachers or curricula that treat science as an identity rather than a process.


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All youngsters can do science, but over time they begin to think of being a scientist as something reserved for only certain kinds of kids. Based on what my colleagues and I have learned, however, there are some steps you can take to keep the curiosity alive and the science flowing.

When talking to children, many adults might say things like “Let’s be scientists today!” (to promote curiosity) or “You’re such a good scientist!” (to praise a child). But this kind of language, which focuses on science as an identity rather than a set of activities and actions that people do, can be demotivating. One study showed that girls (but not boys) as young as four persisted longer when their cue to participate in science activities was “Let’s do science” rather than “Let’s be scientists.”

One possibility is that when thinking of a scientist, children might be calling to mind a (white) man. If they don’t share that identity, they might disengage from an activity designed “for scientists.” Relatedly, children might believe that being a scientist requires special intellectual abilities—ones they think certain groups, such as (white) men, have but others don’t.

This stereotypical belief that science is reserved for only certain kinds of people emerges surprisingly early. By first grade, girls say they are less interested in computer science and engineering. Perhaps more on the nose, when asked to draw a scientist, children tend to draw men, although this bias has improved over time.

This kind of stereotyping has a cumulative effect such that by high school, girls who are at the 80th percentile of science ability (an index of standardized test scores and grades in high school classes that are related to STEM, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics) have the same likelihood of majoring in certain STEM fields as boys in the lowest percentile.

The good news is that subtle linguistic cues can also be harnessed to promote engagement with science in surprisingly potent ways. Framing science as actions that we take, for example, seems to protect children’s interest in and motivation to engage with science over time. Even outside of more controlled laboratory settings, students whose teachers use more action-focused language (such as “let’s do science”) have been found to persist longer in a novel science game than students whose teachers use more identity-focused language.

Perhaps now you are thinking, “Great, I will just focus on doing science and the actions that make up the scientific process!” And that is certainly likely to be effective with children even as they transition from childhood to adolescence and head into early adulthood.

But it’s also true that during adolescence, your kids are actively trying on and ultimately forming different identities for themselves. So in contrast to its demotivating effects on young children, identity-focused language may help teens stay interested in science. In one study, cueing a future identity based on science (such as “scientist” or “doctor”) motivated middle schoolers to do more homework and was associated with higher grades. That might be because if teens think of themselves as scientists, then they are willing to do what it takes to be the person they want to become.

Ultimately, parents want their children to enjoy learning, exploring and figuring things out for themselves. Those activities just happen to be critical pieces of the scientific process. Focusing on these actions when children are young might help them persist in hard tasks or lessons. But as older children gain experience in these areas and start forming ideas of whom they want to become, emphasizing future science-dependent identities might also be helpful in maintaining an interest in science.

How these two versions of subtle language cues might work together (or not) has yet to be tested; perhaps this research could be done by your future scientist.

Ryan F. Lei is an associate professor of psychology at Haverford College. He has a B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Northwestern University. He completed postdoctoral training in developmental psychology at New York University. Follow him on Bluesky @ryanlei.bsky.social

More by Ryan F. Lei
Scientific American Magazine Vol 333 Issue 1This article was originally published with the title “Language Affects Kids’ Interest in Science” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 333 No. 1 (), p. 95
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican072025-ubOeMOh1A1X80ij33PApz