Learning Research and Development Center

People

Crowley, Kevin

Associate Professor of Cognitive Studies, School of Education
Research Scientist, Learning Research & Development Center
PhD, Carnegie Mellon University


Contact:
3939 O'Hara Street, 8th Floor
412-624-8116
412-624-7439
crowleyk@pitt.edu

 

Research Interests: How do children first learn about academic disciplines? Long before they encounter science, history, math, or art in school, children begin developing a wealth of informal knowledge about each topic. In science, for example, children are actively developing various aspects of scientific thinking, including nascent scientific reasoning skills, naive theories for scientific domains, knowledge of interesting science factoids, knowledge about famous scientific narratives, and even some early ideas about what different kinds of scientists do in their professional work. As this everyday scientific literacy develops, children are simultaneously developing a sense of identity as individuals who are more or less interested in science and more or less motivated to engage in science-related activities. My research explores the development of this early scientific literacy. I am particularly interested in the ways that parents explain science to their children. Explanations include talk about causal relations, analogies, and scientific principles. I focus on explanations because prior research shows that when children, undergraduates, or professional scientists focus on building explanations during scientific thinking, they develop more coherent theories, they are better at interpreting evidence, and they are better at transferring knowledge to solve new problems. In addition, children's developing explanations for the causal and relational structure of their everyday environments are thought to be core mechanisms in creating and organizing their naive theories. Thus, to the extent that parents help children build explanations about science during informal science activities, they may facilitate children's scientific problem solving skills as well as aid them in constructing and revising naive theories about science.

Projects/Labs

• University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE)
• InformalScience
• Ecology of Educational Opportunities in Pittsburgh
• City as Learning Lab (CaLL): Spreading Technological Fluency Through Creative Robotics
• Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE)

Publications

• Eberbach, C. & Crowley, K. (In Press). From Everyday to Scientific Observation: How Children Learn to Observe the Biologist's World. Review of Educational Research.
• DiSalvo, B.J., Crowley, K. & Norwood, R. (2008). Learning in Context: Digital games and young black men. Games and Culture. 3, 131-141.
• Bernstein, D. & Crowley, K. (2008). Searching for Signs of Intelligent Life: An Investigation of Young Children’s Beliefs About Robot Intelligence. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 17:2, 225-247.
• Sanford, C., Knutson, K., & Crowley, K. (2007). We Always Spend Time Together on Sundays: Grandparents and informal learning. Visitor Studies, 10(2), 136-151.
• Bernstein, D., Crowley, K. & Nourbakhsh, I. (2007). Working with a robot: Exploring relationship potential in human-robot systems. Interaction Studies, 8(3), 465-482.
• Palmquist, S. D. & Crowley, K. (2007). Studying dinosaur learning on an island of expertise. In R. Goldman, R. Pea, B. Barron, & S. Derry (Eds.), Video Research in the Learning Sciences (pp. 271-286). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Palmquist, S.D. & Crowley, K. (2007). From teachers to testers: Parents' role in child expertise development in informal settings. Science Education, 91(5), 712-732.
• Fender, J. G. & Crowley, K. (2007). How parent explanation changes what children learn from everyday scientific thinking. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 28, 189-210.
• Nourbakhsh, I., Hamner, E., E. Ayoob, Porter, E., Dunlavey, B., Bernstein, D., Crowley, K., Lotter, M., Shelly, S., Hsiu, T., & Clancy, D. (2006). The Personal Exploration Rover: Educational Assessment of a Robotic Exhibit for Informal Learning Venues. The International Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 22, No. 4, pp 777-791.
• Knutson, K. & Crowley, K. (2005). Museum as learning laboratory: Developing and using a practical theory of informal learning. Hand to Hand, 18(4), 4-5.
• Crowley, K. & Knutson, K (2005). Museum as learning laboratory: Bringing research and practice together. Hand to Hand, 19(1), 3-6.
• Eberbach, C. & Crowley, K, (2005). From living to virtual: Learning from museum objects. Curator, 48 (3), 317-338.
• Nourbakhsh, I., Crowley, K., Bhave, A., Hamner, E., Hsiu, T., Perez-Bergquist, A., Richards, S., Wilkinson, K. (2005). The Robotic Autonomy Mobile Robotics Course: Robot Design, Curriculum Design and Educational Assessment. Autonomous Robots Journal, 18 (1), 103-127.
• Schunn, C. D., Crowley, K., & Okada, T. (2005). Cognitive Science: Interdisciplinarity now and then. In S. J. Derry, C. D. Schunn, & M. A. Gernsbacher (Eds.), Interdisciplinary Collaboration: An Emerging Cognitive Science (pp. 287–315). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Knutson, K. & Crowley, K. (2004). Review of “Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum.” Science Education, 88 (2), 297-300.
• Swartz, M.I. & Crowley, K, (2004). Parent beliefs about teaching in a children’s museum. Visitor Studies, 7(2), 1-16.
• Leinhardt, G., Knutson, K., Crowley, K. (2003). Museum Learning Collaborative redux. Journal of Museum Education, 28(1), 23-31.
• Leinhardt, G., Knutson, K., Crowley, K. (2003). Museum Learning Collaborative Redux, Journal of Museum Education
• Leinhardt, G., Crowley, K., & Knutson, K. (Eds.). (2002). Learning Conversations in Museums. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Leinhardt, G., Crowley, K., & Knutson, K. (Eds.) (2002). Learning conversations in museums. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
• Leinhardt, G., & Crowley, K. (2002). Objects of learning, objects of talk: Changing minds in museums. In S. Paris (Ed.), Multiple perspectives on object-centered learning (pp. 301-324). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Schunn, C. D., Crowley, K., & Okada, T. (2002). What makes collaborations across a distance succeed?: The case of the cognitive science community. In P. Hinds & S. Kiesler, Distributed work. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Crowley, K., Leinhardt, G., & Chang, C. (2001). Emerging research communities and the World-Wide Web: Analysis of a web-based resource for the field of museum learning. Computers & Education, 36, 1-14
• Crowley, K., Schunn, C.D., & Okada, T. (Eds.) (2001). Designing for Science: Implications from Professional, Instructional, and Everyday Science. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Crowley, K., Schunn, C. D., & Okada, T. (2001). An introduction to Designing for Science. In K. Crowley, C.D. Schunn, & T. Okada (Eds.), Designing for Science: Implications from Professional, Instructional, and Everyday Science. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
• Schunn, C. D., Crowley, K., & Okada, T. (2000). Cognitive Science: Interdisciplinarity now and then. In K. Ueda & T. Okada (Eds.), In search of collaborative cognition: Cognitive science on creative collaboration. Tokyo: Kyoritsu Shuppan. (In Japanese)
• Leinhardt, G., & Crowley, K. (1998). Museum learning as conversational elaboration: A proposal to capture, code and analyze museum talk. (Museum Learning Collaborative Technical Report MLC-01). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, Learning Research and Development Center (http://museumlearning.com/paperresearch.html).

There are 27 publications total. View All

Honors and Awards

• Roy L. Shafer Leading Edge Award, Association of Science and Technology Centers, 2005, for the UPCLOSE partnership with the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.
• Member, National Research Council Study Panel on Learning Science, Kindergarten through Eight Grade, 2004-2005.
• Program Chair, Visitor Studies Association Conference, 2006.
• Met Life Promising Practice award from the Association of Children's Museums, awarded to the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and UPCLOSE, 2004.
• Associate Editor, American Educational Research Journal: Section on Teaching Learning and Human Development, 2001 to 2004
• Named as a collaborator on a G-Mark Good Design Award, Special Prize of the Chairman Jury that was given to NHK and the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu, Japan, 2004
• Visiting professor, Nagoya University School of Education, Nagoya Japan, 2003.
• Editorial Award, Japanese Cognitive Science Society, 1997

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