How to cultivate curiosity in students

Syllabus pressure and test preparation leave little room for "Why?" and "What if?". In 1949 Albert Einstein wrote that it was "nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry". The shorter line people quote today is a later paraphrase of that sentence.

Below is what two studies and one trial show about curiosity in students, what they leave out, and four phrases for your next lesson.

What the evidence on curiosity in students covers

Gruber, Gelman and Ranganath published a brain-imaging study in Neuron in 2014, in which adults rated their curiosity about trivia questions and were then tested on what they remembered. Shah and colleagues published a study of about 6,200 US kindergarten children in Pediatric Research in 2018. The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) trialled a classroom talk programme, Dialogic Teaching, in 76 English primary schools.

None of them tested the four phrases below, which are practical ways to act on what the research points to.

Curious students remember more

In the Neuron study, adults recalled 70.6% of the answers to questions they were highly curious about, against 54.1% for questions they cared little about. In a follow-up experiment a day later, the gap held: 45.9% against 28.1%. Each experiment used fewer than 30 adults.

Curiosity also helped with material nobody asked about. Faces shown while participants waited for an answer were recognised slightly better in high-curiosity moments. The authors call the effect "small, but significant", and after a day it held only for faces people recognised with confidence.

This was a lab test on adults with trivia. The authors suggest that stirring curiosity before teaching new material could help learning, but they did not test that in a classroom.

Curiosity and early reading and maths

The Pediatric Research study used the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, which followed children born in 2001. Parents rated their child's curiosity in kindergarten on five questions, such as whether the child shows eagerness to learn new things. Trained staff assessed reading and maths directly at a home visit.

After adjusting for other factors, including effortful control (how well a child can focus and persist), higher curiosity went with higher scores. The standardised effect was 0.11 for reading and 0.12 for maths, which the authors describe as small but meaningful, and similar in size to effortful control. It was larger for children from lower-income households: 0.18 and 0.20, against 0.08 and 0.07 for higher-income households.

This is an association, so it cannot show that curiosity caused the higher scores. Only parents rated curiosity, they rated their children very highly, and the authors call the results preliminary.

What classroom talk does

The EEF's Dialogic Teaching trial is not a curiosity programme. It trained Year 5 teachers over 20 weeks to get pupils to reason, discuss, question, argue and explain, rather than merely respond. Pupils made two additional months' progress in English and science, and one in maths, compared with control schools. The EEF says it is moderately confident the difference came from the programme.

The programme changed how teachers talked, not what they taught. The EEF notes the approach "requires significant changes in interactive practice across the curriculum, though not in curriculum content", and that most teachers thought it would take more than two terms to embed fully.

Four phrases to cultivate curiosity in students

"What do you think would happen if…?"

This phrase asks for a prediction before the explanation, so students see that their thinking matters. Use it in science ("if we doubled the water?"), history ("if this event had not happened?") or maths ("if we changed this number?"). Then test the prediction together, so the guess meets the evidence.

"That's an interesting question. What made you think of that?"

Parking an unexpected question can teach students that asking is inconvenient. This reply keeps the question central and shows you the thinking behind it. Write the question on a "Curious Questions" board and give it a slot later in the week.

"Can you find another way to explain that?"

Treat a correct answer as the start. Ask a student to explain their solution to a younger pupil, link it to something from their own life, or draw it instead of describing it.

"Let's find out together."

Teachers often feel they must have every answer. When a question stumps you, say so, then ask "How could we investigate this?" and model searching, comparing explanations or designing a quick check. Students see that not knowing is where learning starts.

Questions teachers ask

Won't encouraging questions slow syllabus coverage?

No study here measured coverage. The EEF trial changed how teachers talked, not what they taught, and pupils made more progress. Start with one phrase and a few moments per lesson.

Is curiosity only realistic for high-ability groups?

The US study found the link in all children, and it was stronger for children from lower-income homes. That is evidence about kindergarten children, but it gives no reason to save curiosity for the strongest group.

Can I prioritise curiosity in an exam-driven school?

Questioning and explaining are the habits the EEF trial trained, and pupils made more progress in English, science and maths. It was a primary school trial that did not look at exam results, so treat it as encouraging.

What if students go silent on open questions?

Think-pair-share, sentence stems ("I think… because…") or a minute of jotting before anyone speaks lower the social risk and can bring in more voices. These are common classroom practices, not findings from the studies above.

How can I tell if curiosity is increasing?

Count what you can see: questions students ask without being prompted, and how willingly they attempt harder tasks. A weekly tally of unprompted questions shows the trend.

What a school can take from this

• Pick one phrase a week. Plan where it will appear in each class before the week starts. Two or three uses per lesson is a fair start.
• Make the question visible. Keep a "Curious Questions" board and return to it on a fixed day.
• Let students write the stems. Question starters belong to the class when the class writes them.
• Measure your own room. Record a baseline of unprompted questions, then check again after half a term.