Altmann, Elena C. and de Boer, Eline R and Eiteljoerge, Sarah F V and Bazhydai, Marina and Meyer, Marlene and Braithwaite, Eleanor Katie and Bounia, Pinelopi and Karadağ, Didar and Hunnius, Sabine and Westermann, Gert (2025) The Early Childhood Curiosity Questionnaire: Development and psychometric properties in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. Other. PsyArXiv.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Curiosity in early childhood is associated with exploration, learning, and cognitive growth, yet little is known about how trait curiosity can be reliably assessed in preschoolers. This paper reports the development and validation of a caregiver-report measure designed to assess curiosity in children aged 2–5 years across three cultural contexts: the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany. Part1 generated 41 age-appropriate items byadapting andextending the Infantand Toddler Curiosity Questionnaire (ITCQ; Altmann et al., 2025a), first in English, followed by Dutch and German translations. Part 2 examined the factor structure in each country independently (sample sizes: UK = 389; NL = 330; DE = 540), and discardedpoorly fitting items and integratedresults to produce a single, 25-item questionnaire comprising three subscales: Novelty, Investigative, and Interactive Curiosity. Part 3 evaluated the reliability and validity of this final instrument within each national sampleto ensure robust performance across cultural contexts. Psychometric analyses indicated strong internal consistency, coherent relations to other related, validated measures, and evidence of cross-cultural applicability. The resulting measure, a direct continuation of the previously developed infant version, enables systematic assessment of young children’s curiosity as a multidimensional construct observable in everyday life.