Dr Marina Bazhydai

Lecturer in Psychology

Research 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.

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