Dr Marina Bazhydai
Lecturer in PsychologyResearch Overview
I am a developmental scientist investigating knowledge acquisition, transformation, and transmission across development. I direct the Active Learning Lab (ALL). My research interests include infant curiosity and its effect on successful learning outcomes, developmental precursors to creativity, active information seeking and information giving in early childhood. I aim at understanding how young children learn new information through independent exploration and trust in others' testimony in situations of epistemic uncertainty, and what information they choose to transmit to their less knowledgeable social partners. I use behavioural, eye-tracking and physiological methods to investigate these questions. To take this line of work further, I intend to study the developmental trajectory of active information seeking in social learning, play, exploration, critical thinking, and creativity from infancy to adolescence.
Web Links
Curiosity Battery: Developing a new curiosity assessment toolkit for primary school
01/09/2024 → 31/08/2029
Research
Lancaster Evaluation Group
13/02/2024 → 31/07/2024
Research
Morecambe Bay Curriculum Development Co-Design Project
26/01/2024 → 31/07/2024
Other
Enhancing wonder and curiosity through educational travel programmes
01/10/2023 → 30/11/2024
Research
Fostering children’s curiosity and social learning through creative arts interventions
01/03/2023 → 31/07/2024
Research
Selective teaching: do children transmit generalizable or specific information in health and non-health related contexts
01/12/2022 → 31/12/2024
Research
Validation study of Wonder Chart and Wonder-full Education Questionnaire in British school children
01/03/2021 → 31/03/2025
Research
Lab Tour and Knowledge Exchange for Lancashire County Council Network Of Outstanding Providers
Influence on Policy, Practice, Patients & the Public
Lancaster Music Festival
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Investigating the links between curiosity, wonder, and creativity in school children.
Oral presentation
Investigating the relationship between hyperfocus and creativity in adults with and without ADHD
Oral presentation
Information worth sharing: Do children transmit generalisable or specific information to naïve social partners?
Oral presentation
Developmental roots of information sharing.
Oral presentation
Does curiosity enhance infant word learning?
Oral presentation
Linking sustainability and place into the curriculum: Panel Discussion between teachers and academics focused on these themes
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
Promoting children's curiosity, wonder and creativity through engagement with nature - evidence from psychological science and innovative education
Public Lecture/ Debate/Seminar
A novel perspective on formative assessments: providing opportunities for curiosity, wonder and creativity
Oral presentation
Lancaster Evaluation Group Seminars
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Campus in the City 2024
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
Light Up Lancaster
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
The Wonder-full Education Questionnaire: Do primary school UK teachers promote wonder in their classrooms?
Oral presentation
The Wonder Chart: a new validated measure of primary school children’s wonder.
Oral presentation
The good, the bad and the ugly: Teaching first year psychology undergraduates about research integrity and open science
Oral presentation
“Ideas worth spreading”: Development and selectivity in children’s teaching.
Oral presentation
Conceptual and theoretical perspectives on curiosity in development.
Oral presentation
Do children transmit generalisable or specific information in health and non-health related contexts?
Oral presentation
Infants’ curiosity-based Exploration tested in the context of a novel theoretical framework
Oral presentation
STEM week at Quernmore CofE Primary School
Festival/Exhibition/Concert
“Stick to what you’ve learned and go from there”: How infants’ curiosity-based exploration is guided by first experiences and learning progress
Oral presentation
“Let me see that!”: Self-directed Exploration in Infants & Adults tested in the context of a new theoretical framework
Oral presentation
Let me see that: Self-directed Exploration in Infants tested in the context of a new theoretical framework
Oral presentation
Two-year old children preferentially transmit simple actions but not pedagogically demonstrated actions.
Oral presentation
Preverbal infants’ selectively use social referencing in response to referential uncertainty
Oral presentation
Epistemic Uncertainty: Implicit Encoding and Information Seeking from Infancy to Preschool
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
Active social learning in infancy: Epistemic information seeking and transmission.
Oral presentation
Social learning in development: Behavioural, cognitive, and affective processes.
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience
“I don’t know but I know who to ask”: 12-month-olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults.
Oral presentation
“I don’t know but I know who to ask”: 12-month-olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults
Oral presentation
From curiosity, to wonder, to creativity: a cognitive developmental psychology perspective
Oral presentation
Curiosity in social learning: 12-month olds selectively seek information from more knowledgeable informants
Oral presentation
Information transmission in two-year-old children: preference for less complex but not pedagogically demonstrated actions
Oral presentation
Developmental Research Group
Developmental Research Group
- Developmental Research Group