Beyond the desire to know: Development and validation of the School Curiosity Inventory

<p>While curiosity in school is particularly essential for school-age students’ learning and well-being, its conceptualization and assessment remain limited. The present study aimed to develop a school curiosity inventory that (a) covers multi-dimensional curiosity tailored to school contexts, (b) captures curiosity about students’ own future development, and (c) validates the meta-level facet of curiosity attitude and regulation as a unique construct. Three sub-studies were conducted to develop and validate this inventory, using Chinese student samples. Study 1 (N=1046, age=12-19) established the initial factor structure with a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, identifying seven sub-dimensions from two domains: learning, social, sensational, and self-development curiosity (motivation domain), as well as curiosity attitudes in positive and negative sides, and curiosity regulation (meta-curiosity domain). Study 2 (N=720, age=14-18) refined the seven-dimension inventory into a brief 27-item form, demonstrated its good temporal stability and measurement invariance through a two-month test-retest survey, indicated these dimensions to be partly overlapped with but different from the similar constructs in general curiosity measures, and demonstrated their greater relative importance for subsequent learning and well-being outcomes than the similar constructs. Finally, Study 3 (N=705, grade=7th-8th) reconfirmed the seven-dimension structure and mapped its nomological network with social-emotional and regulation-related skills with moderate correlations. Together, this study broadens the conceptualization of students’ curiosity to a multi-domain construct under dual-processes, and provides theoretical and practical frameworks for future school curiosity research.</p>