Measuring Acquisition and Growth in Inquiry and Curiosity (MAGIC)

The MAGIC Project (Measuring Acquisition & Growth of Inquiry & Curiosity) is a new research initiative at the Stanford Center on Early Childhood. Professor Jelena Obradović and her team at the SPARK Lab aim to develop measures of young learners’ curiosity, creativity, initiative, problem-solving, and scientific inquiry. Developing these skills in early childhood creates a foundation for lifelong learning, yet there is a lack of valid and scalable measures that can inform efforts to promote these skills in preschool and early elementary grades. 

We will create a national network of researchers to help us design new assessment tasks that can capture individual differences and change over time in these foundational learning skills. We will work with educational and community partners to test and validate these assessments with children from diverse language, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds to ensure that tasks yield information that is equitable and relevant. If you are interested in participating in this effort, please reach out to our project coordinator, Maya Provencal by email: mayapro@stanford.edu.

This research is funded by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.