Guided activity kits impact parents’ scaffolding of child STEM play

Background: Adults can promote the STEM skill learning of young children during guided play but may need support to incorporate STEM talk (STEM vocabulary and scientific inquiry) and reduce directive management. Aims: We evaluated (1) the impact of guided (vs. basic) activity kits on parents’ STEM talk and directive management as parents helped their preschoolers construct wooden structures and (2) whether guided activity kits were especially effective for parents with less (vs. more) formal education. Sample: Participants were 75 parents with high school (27%) or college (73%) degrees, and their children (M_age = 4.82 years; 49% girls). Methods: Families received five activity kits containing materials for building wooden structures over 10 weeks. By random assignment, kits were either “guided” (included embedded stories, parent tips, and extension ideas; n = 50) or “basic” (identical construction activities without guidance features; n = 25). Parents’ rates of STEM talk and directive management were assessed while dyads solved novel building challenges before and after the intervention. Results: No main effect of intervention appeared on parent STEM talk or directive management. However, a moderated effect on STEM talk emerged: parents with less formal education assigned to guided activity kits produced significantly more STEM talk at the post-intervention assessments than did those given basic kits. Self-guiding STEM activity kits designed for parent-child play are effective for boosting some parents’ STEM talk that has been linked to better STEM outcomes in prior research.